D’ya hear yer man

A bit of snow fell on Friday and the country came to a standstill.

There simply wasn’t enough salt and shovels to go round and as a consequence everything had to be cancelled.

Even though not all of the country was affected by the snowfall, in the interests of equality, a blanket ban was imposed on all activities, from car boot sales in Swatragh to historical battle re-enactments in Island Magee.

For some people the list of cancellations included electricity.

Power cuts are strange events whereby all logic is suspended. I’ve lost count of the number of times during a power cut when I’ve forgotten myself and tried the light switch. And then surprised myself by turning on the tap to find the power cut hasn’t affected my running water.

During Friday’s black out, with Lucy tucked up in bed, Karen proposed a game of chess by candle light. Just as I went upstairs to retrieve the Simpsons’ chess set and fulfil our ‘back to basics’ fantasy the power came back on so we just sat and watched TV instead without talking to each other.

In a bizarre twist, the advent of smartphones meant that although people were in darkness because of the power cut they were still able to access social network sites to inform their friends and followers that they were without power.

I read on Facebook how someone compared their powerless plight to that of someone from Victorian era.

It must have been awful being around during Victorian times - it took you half a day to heat a room, three days to run a hot bath and you needed a spare room in which to store a week’s supply of candles. As if it wasn’t bad enough that people had to work hard for their heat, hot water and light, they’d no Facebook to tell their friends about their hardships.

Social networking did actually exist in Victorian times but it was a lot more cumbersome as demonstrated by this previously unpublished entry from the diary of everyone’s favourite historical pedant Samuel Pepys.