WHO YOU GONNA CALL..?
(begun Thursday 30th June at 10.45pm)

The Weasel ain't the happie-chappie he once was.. He's been looking down for weeks, and dare I say, avoiding me?  His sullen financier making his life miserable?  Today it slipped out that he's being bothered by his knees, and I cornered the poor chap and said he should do something about it, before he finds he's become a very youthful cripple...
His connections to the Curry Mafia can work magic in many areas, but I doubt replacing cooked-off cartilage on a Puppet's patella, features high on their priority list... *sighs..

You probably already know from my recent blog over at durbanite, that our power went out at 2.15am Tuesday morning... Odd how Fred's pole at No. 12 went out as well, while ours at No. 8 stayed on, leaving the rest in darkness, right down to the stop-street and including the giant overheads.. Despite that our streetlight stayed on like a lonely little petunia, our house was dark and cold...
The GW rang Faults at 2.30am, and then he rang the Station, saying the cable thieves might still be in the area.. *chokes..   As if....

I was thinking about what the tech droog had told Sue the Book last week, as he merrily strung up the shiny copper replacement cabling on Jan Smuts.. The bit about replacing copper with aluminium?
So, mid-morning I called the Illuminati's Nest, and blow me down if I didn't end up being put through to the charming Rosemary Naidoo.. (maybe try searching my blogs for her name, as we've met before, though a long time ago), and she put me on to a Mr. Wienand, who kindly tried to explain about the aluminium replacement situation..
When I'd told him they'd just replaced our 'stolen' cables with the shiniest copper imaginable, he immediately expressed his surprise, but we left it at that....

The GW had driven past the cable menders during the day and said the contractors were an outfit called Raw Power.. Hmm..  That rang a bell fosho...
It didn't take me too long to find the photos I'd taken back on the 20th August 2008 at 9.05am with the Raw Power vehicles parked on the verge outside Sabeera's house at No. 18 HERE, while the guys hunted for a cable fault... Will you check out the chap standing there?  He could almost be the red-eyed Allen Spence's older brother..  Take the hair back with a No. 1 cut, lose the goatee and moustache, and see what lurks beneath..  *winks...
Rudolph Mhlope had implied that I wouldn't recognize Spence if I saw him.. You think?

Back in 2005/6 there was a Security Division tacked onto the Muni Electricity Department. At least that's what Mike Oliver had told me.. Had this section morphed into Raw Power by 2008?  By then both Telkom and the Muni were creating contractors left, right, and centre, in a highly successful bid to muddy the waters surrounding Metro Connect...

OK - so I wandered off the beaten path a bit... It's still Tuesday and the powers still out, when at noon, a fleet of enormous lorries arrive in the Crescent, to re-surface the road.. *blinks.. Another recognizable logo, and I'm darned if I didn't find Aqua Transport and Hire in Album No. 5, as they appeared to be delivering stuff to the good man's home up at No. 16 in June 2008, and were calling themselves Aqua Trans.. Same crowd though, and well worthy of a google-search, where you'll find them heavily involved with both the Ethekwini Water and Electricity departments... And here they were, to re-surface our little road!  Hau!
Anyone out there with the skillz to check out the Board of Directors and Shareholders of both Aqua Transport and Hire and Raw Power?  It could prove interesting...?
On a side-note, whilst hunting for those pictures, I stumbled across THIS one of a vehicle bearing the logo Three Core Electrical that I'd taken on 31st January 2011, at 9.11am, and IIRC it was parked on Balliram's verge while they worked on his streetlight... Immanuel Pillay's Boyz?  *waves...

Moving on.. -  The Aqua Trans guys were still hard at it at 5pm Tuesday, though we were still without power..
At 7pm I glanced up through the kitchen window to see a big torch shine on our still active streetlight, and my Largeness took the 52 steps in record time.. He was just getting back into the vehicle when I called out and asked what they were doing..
Two chaps in civvies, in a small unmarked white bakkie with a couple of ladders on the roof.. *sniffs the air with interest...
He said when I asked, that they were from Ethekwini Electricity, and had come to fix the lights...*coughs... 'But they've stolen the cables on Jan Smuts' said I...   'Oh, in that case the cable crew will have to come over later and do the job' says he, and off they sped...
I'll lay you odds that there I'd been chatting away to the Muni's own Cable-Theft Division!  *roffels....
If I'd not pounded up my stairs at speed, I'm guessing our cables would've been swinging freely in the breeze ten minutes later...

I was sat here at the desk at 4am the next morning when the power finally clicked back on, and we discovered after daybreak that the technicians had removed all the shiny copper lines they'd hung on Jan Smuts last week, and replaced them with a single thick rubber insulated line... *yawns...
At this point I hope you're keeping track of the time frame.. That was a pretty substantial load-shedding exercise was it not?  *winks..

This morning at 2am I guess that little white bakkie had been back, as the power went off from next door at No. 10, right up the street and round the corner, and you could see the lines hanging down outside No. 16...
The Scrabble-Player sent me a text about an hour ago to say there was a crew higher up the road, replacing the latest cut lines with yet more shiny copper.. Go figure... *eyeroll...
If you don't smell the now familiar stench of goonda-style bullying, you're surely fast asleep.. These deliberate power-outs aren't affecting the main Metro Connect Operators at No. 18, as I'm told they have a back-up power supply, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Paramedic and the ex-Councillor's cousin also had some sort of generator in place....

LATER at 12 midnight...

There's a dog barking somewhere up on the road, and I tried the lights only to find that our power's back off now as well.... I just woke the GW to see whether he wanted to call Faults... Almost immediately, BigEars next door chirruped his remote several times as he cranked up the BackFire frequency to enhance his listening pleasure... Shame... *eyeroll..
Enough already with the creative load-shedding...

We were cruising along Ridge Road on our way home after lunch today, when we went past the old wireless Station.. The GW said it was sporting a new sign that said it's now the home of the Sydenham SAPS Detective Branch...*falls over....
How many times have I speculated, as our Area Controller drives down to the stop-street and hangs a left, that he's heading to either the Druglord's mansion in Randles Road, or to 343 Innes Road?   Looks like it's been neither...
You want to bet that when he's not up at Dodge City schmoozing the Crumb, he's parked off at the old Radio Base in Ridge Road, just a stone's throw from our friends at Telkom Overport?
Are you beginning to grasp just how much power the Druglord, Earl Michael Barnabas wields, to have that establishment handed on a plate to Dodge City, and would I find the Sexual Harrassment Specialist pulled in there as well?  That's a rhetorical question and needs no reply... *vomits violently....

It's the perfect site from which to run Organised Crime and you can bet that Tweedledumb and Tweedledee are holed up in their own fancy office, spending many happy hours intercepting and corrupting calls and visiting people's homes uninvited, to eavesdrop on their conversations, while watching residents come and go via the hidden microscopic cameras...   All the faffing over the Information Secrecy Bill is a joke.. You've left it too late folks...
Hell, if you think the Zone is the worst case scenario, think again.. EVERY Muni in the country is setting up their own version of the Metro Connect Project, and your street could be next...

Surveillance technology so invasive that your right to privacy has become a joke, and behind those headphones more often than not, will be Crackers and hackers, dancing to your local Crime Bosses or Druglord's tunes...
Go check out the press file pictures of Glen Agliotti and tell me if you see a worried man, or a smug face that knows he's home and dry.. Now able to keep miles ahead of the law, with his own IT lackeys keeping him informed well in advance of any investigations that could affect his empire...

You've developed a pinched nerve lately?  Aching joints?  How long before Balliram himself starts to taste his own medicine, camped out under that impressive mast? Eish...

It's now nearly 12.45am, and Detective First-Class Balliram has just set off his noisy alarm.. Poor Missus C.  In his efforts to cover his tracks, his family are also forced to endure the blackouts, which IMO is pretty uncool...
The telecoms networks and in particular vodacom's problems today?  Who you gonna call?  They've got us over a barrel.. Odd that my Vice-Chair said his cellphone stopped operating after 9pm last night, when the Press said the fault only occurred today?  Jumping the gun there Balliram?  Couldn't wait?

LATER at 7am

All the power in the street was restored at 1.30am..   Until tonight?  Bah!
Peace..

---oOo---

Friday 1st July 2011 at 2.37pm.