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Bloody entitled kids with their tik toks & fortnites


‘We need another war”, an elderly relative used to insist in the 1970s. “That’ll sort the younger generation out. That’ll show them a thing or two. That’s what they need.” Even as a child, I found this puzzling. Well, yes, a war would sort them out, I thought. It would definitely do that. It would also involve mass human slaughter, you mad old fool.


Yet here I am, half a century later, thinking along similar lines. No, not about war. I’m not that batty or callous. But impending blackouts? Just maybe.


First, let’s be clear, blackouts are an appalling prospect. And for the elderly and vulnerable, they could be lethal. The winter’s going to be hard enough without your home power being cut with just a few hours’ notice. Especially if it’s a cold one, like those sadistic long-range forecasts say. That’s why the Government and National Grid will do everything to prevent such a calamity. My bet is they’ll succeed. I certainly hope so.


But what if they don’t? What if we get blackouts? Could there be a bright side to the darkness?


As it happens, some of my earliest memories are of blackouts caused by the miners’ strike and the oil crisis in 1973. Children like me found it fun to huddle around a family candle eating sandwiches when the cooker didn’t work, and to edge gingerly through the house in complete blackness when the lights went. It was like an instant game of Murder, which, in those days, we were allowed to play without our parents fearing we’d end up in Broadmoor.


And it certainly engendered a community spirit. Different postcodes lost power at different times on different days, so we used to head over to relatives in another bit of Birmingham to get a hot meal. The next day they’d come over to us, and so on. “Ooh, it’s just like the war”, my elderly relative would enthuse. I’d scoff, but there’s no doubt we had a healthy all-in-it-together approach. We looked out for each other. Because we had to. Could that same sense of community togetherness be kindled today? Boy, do we need it.


And blackouts could be just the ticket to shake some of today’s youngsters out of that sublime sense of entitlement and self-righteousness. At a time when the sensitive ones need counselling after watching Rod Liddle on Question Time, the horror of losing the means to power up their phones might jolt them back to reality – and back to real-world problems, rather than obsessing about whether Baden-Powell should be cancelled and tapes of Fawlty Towers burned.                  


Meanwhile, a blackout or two might demonstrate the naivety of the extreme net-zero agenda. It’s all very well asserting the evils of fossil fuels when you’re sitting in a junior common room sipping tea, or blocking the M25 on a frantic Friday. But things become trickier once the lights literally go out. Suddenly, you’re grateful for a bit of Norwegian crude.


Oh, and there’s the Bonk-for-Britain push. If you haven’t heard, a Tory minister reportedly told the Sun on Sunday last week that we must use tax cuts to encourage more women to have babies to stem the declining birth rate. If that’s the case, I suggest “blackouts for baby-making” could be the tonic, and could get the Tories leaping back up in the polls. Well, we can dream.    


So, might power cuts actually be a positive experience? Of course not. They’ll be inconvenient and uncomfortable, and for some, dangerous and terrible. But if my elderly relative could see the bright side of two world wars, then I’m ready to see one or two well-hidden benefits of otherwise horrible enforced cold and darkness. Let’s trust it won’t come to that.

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Bloody entitled kids with their tik toks & fortnites



‘We need another war”, an elderly relative used to insist in the 1970s. “That’ll sort the younger generation out. That’ll show them a thing or two. That’s what they need.” Even as a child, I found this puzzling. Well, yes, a war would sort them out, I thought. It would definitely do that. It would also involve mass human slaughter, you mad old fool.


Yet here I am, half a century later, thinking along similar lines. No, not about war. I’m not that batty or callous. But impending blackouts? Just maybe.


First, let’s be clear, blackouts are an appalling prospect. And for the elderly and vulnerable, they could be lethal. The winter’s going to be hard enough without your home power being cut with just a few hours’ notice. Especially if it’s a cold one, like those sadistic long-range forecasts say. That’s why the Government and National Grid will do everything to prevent such a calamity. My bet is they’ll succeed. I certainly hope so.


But what if they don’t? What if we get blackouts? Could there be a bright side to the darkness?


As it happens, some of my earliest memories are of blackouts caused by the miners’ strike and the oil crisis in 1973. Children like me found it fun to huddle around a family candle eating sandwiches when the cooker didn’t work, and to edge gingerly through the house in complete blackness when the lights went. It was like an instant game of Murder, which, in those days, we were allowed to play without our parents fearing we’d end up in Broadmoor.


And it certainly engendered a community spirit. Different postcodes lost power at different times on different days, so we used to head over to relatives in another bit of Birmingham to get a hot meal. The next day they’d come over to us, and so on. “Ooh, it’s just like the war”, my elderly relative would enthuse. I’d scoff, but there’s no doubt we had a healthy all-in-it-together approach. We looked out for each other. Because we had to. Could that same sense of community togetherness be kindled today? Boy, do we need it.


And blackouts could be just the ticket to shake some of today’s youngsters out of that sublime sense of entitlement and self-righteousness. At a time when the sensitive ones need counselling after watching Rod Liddle on Question Time, the horror of losing the means to power up their phones might jolt them back to reality – and back to real-world problems, rather than obsessing about whether Baden-Powell should be cancelled and tapes of Fawlty Towers burned.                  


Meanwhile, a blackout or two might demonstrate the naivety of the extreme net-zero agenda. It’s all very well asserting the evils of fossil fuels when you’re sitting in a junior common room sipping tea, or blocking the M25 on a frantic Friday. But things become trickier once the lights literally go out. Suddenly, you’re grateful for a bit of Norwegian crude.


Oh, and there’s the Bonk-for-Britain push. If you haven’t heard, a Tory minister reportedly told the Sun on Sunday last week that we must use tax cuts to encourage more women to have babies to stem the declining birth rate. If that’s the case, I suggest “blackouts for baby-making” could be the tonic, and could get the Tories leaping back up in the polls. Well, we can dream.    


So, might power cuts actually be a positive experience? Of course not. They’ll be inconvenient and uncomfortable, and for some, dangerous and terrible. But if my elderly relative could see the bright side of two world wars, then I’m ready to see one or two well-hidden benefits of otherwise horrible enforced cold and darkness. Let’s trust it won’t come to that.

Would blackouts be utterly terrible?

Well folk would suffer and maybe even die....

BUT.... Some of my perma-raging middle aged guy fantasies would get fulfilled, so in conclusion, it's impossible to say for sure.
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He's right that the world's full of bitter auld fuds who want everyone to suffer like they did - or like they want everyone to believe they did, at least.

Bit of an indictment of grinding an entire generation of young people through death and mental trauma if that's how it made them feel about their descendants.

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Tbf, I love it when the WiFi gets knocked out whilst working offshore.  People start talking to each other, and the entertaining stories come out.

Boomers and Gen X are almost as bad for having their heads buried in their phones.  Only real difference is the casual racism.

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I have blackouts every day where I live, some times just for a minute, some times for a few hours.  I also have the water cut for a few hours every week.

It's shite, but you get on with it, it part of life.  Wouldn't say it make people better, but it does make folk not so reliant on it.  However, we don't have days that get colder than 20 degrees, and that a really bad day.

We do however get floods, and this week has seen the worse flood I've experience so far (at my house anyway).  I'm now 1m deep and rising.

Today I had my first flood shit, yes that what I said.

We have to take a boat about 1km to the nearest portable toilet set up on the main road.  In the morning, I thought there is no way I could make it and would end up shiting myself on the boat, so I just went for a walk in the garden and let go....The flood is massive and covering many many kms so what is wrong with a little poop, everyone else is doing it. 

Anyway after I cleaned myself up (have water stored for a shower), I listened to BBC sportsound and the Sevco after game reports.  

Feel fantastic, few beers and watch the day (shitty) water go by.

Bring on the war, you bunch of pussies.

 

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I have blackouts every day where I live, some times just for a minute, some times for a few hours.  I also have the water cut for a few hours every week.
It's shite, but you get on with it, it part of life.  Wouldn't say it make people better, but it does make folk not so reliant on it.  However, we don't have days that get colder than 20 degrees, and that a really bad day.
We do however get floods, and this week has seen the worse flood I've experience so far (at my house anyway).  I'm now 1m deep and rising.
Today I had my first flood shit, yes that what I said.
We have to take a boat about 1km to the nearest portable toilet set up on the main road.  In the morning, I thought there is no way I could make it and would end up shiting myself on the boat, so I just went for a walk in the garden and let go....The flood is massive and covering many many kms so what is wrong with a little poop, everyone else is doing it. 
Anyway after I cleaned myself up (have water stored for a shower), I listened to BBC sportsound and the Sevco after game reports.  
Feel fantastic, few beers and watch the day (shitty) water go by.
Bring on the war, you bunch of pussies.
 
Sounds like Greenock gets worse by the week !
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2 hours ago, scottsdad said:

We are here is you need us, Slips. One step at a time.

Many moons ago you posted an other thread you always read my posts with a passion.

Today should be no different.

Did you receive a PM from me in the last week or two?

Sit in line, academic cunto☹️ 

 

Edited by SlipperyP
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11 hours ago, RawB93 said:

Living where you live sounds utterly fucking shite. I have to be honest. 

You are correct from a western point of view.

Then, I don't judge life on materialistic possessions, I look at it, as I have all I need to live life in happiness. Food, water and the love of people around me. 

The rest just get's in the way. 

I tried the life the other way and didn't like it.

ps no need to be rude.

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13 hours ago, RawB93 said:

Living where you live sounds utterly fucking shite. I have to be honest. 

10 years ago I'd have agreed with you.  

But, where I am now (whilst not having as many blackouts or water problems as Slippy's) does have blackouts maybe once every 3-4 weeks (funnily enough we had one for about 4 hours during the night last night).  If it's frequent enough you get used to it and it just becomes part of life.

 

 

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1 hour ago, hk blues said:

10 years ago I'd have agreed with you.  

But, where I am now (whilst not having as many blackouts or water problems as Slippy's) does have blackouts maybe once every 3-4 weeks (funnily enough we had one for about 4 hours during the night last night).  If it's frequent enough you get used to it and it just becomes part of life.

 

 

I do completely get your point, but i think from a context of SP lives in a developing country then its part and parcel of being there, however most of us live in Scotland ie a developed country with the worlds best renewable energy potential and an already existing massive energy infrastructure. The idea that there would be blackouts here is simply disgraceful, especially on the back of our fuel poverty and older people deciding whether to eat or have a warm house etc. I think the attempts by the right to sorta normalise this with the ‘blitz spirit’ teary eyes nostalgia is incredibly worrying as seen with ideas like brexit etc the right is entirely unwilling to ever admit that something hasnt worked and these tropes are continually wheeled out to suit a very worrying agenda. 

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59 minutes ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

I do completely get your point, but i think from a context of SP lives in a developing country then its part and parcel of being there, however most of us live in Scotland ie a developed country with the worlds best renewable energy potential and an already existing massive energy infrastructure. The idea that there would be blackouts here is simply disgraceful, especially on the back of our fuel poverty and older people deciding whether to eat or have a warm house etc. I think the attempts by the right to sorta normalise this with the ‘blitz spirit’ teary eyes nostalgia is incredibly worrying as seen with ideas like brexit etc the right is entirely unwilling to ever admit that something hasnt worked and these tropes are continually wheeled out to suit a very worrying agenda. 

I get it totally, as I said in my post you get used to it if it's frequent enough.  If it's a once in a blue moon event than you will never get used to it and will seem like a huge inconvenience each time it happens. I'd also add that we have prepared some back-up for lights and internet etc when we lose power - if it doesn't happen often it wouldn't be worth buying such back-ups. 

P.S. I'll still call you all out for being a bunch of whingeing pussies if and when it happens! 

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5 hours ago, SlipperyP said:

You are correct from a western point of view.

Then, I don't judge life on materialistic possessions, I look at it, as I have all I need to live life in happiness. Food, water and the love of people around me. 

The rest just get's in the way. 

I tried the life the other way and didn't like it.

ps no need to be rude.

Plus you get to take a shite in a river. I have never tried that.

The closest I came was pishing into a milk bottle and pouring it over the side of a boat. 

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