Writing by candlelight

We had a power cut today. Our house — and indeed the entire village — was without electricity from before noon until late afternoon. Sobering experience. And a salutary reminder of how much our lives depend on stable electricity supplies. Basically, nothing in our house worked: no lighting; no heating; no cooking; no hot water; no TV; no broadband; no chargers for mobile phones. I lit a blazing log fire, so we wouldn’t have frozen, and we could always have gone out to restaurant if there had been no power for cooking. As I say, sobering. And also a reminder of why, global warming or not, no democratic government is going to allow electricity supplies to falter. So we’ll have nukes, or whatever else it takes to keep the lights on.