Timing...?
(begun Tuesday 8th October at 3.35am...)

*As I tried for the third time to sign in now to blogger, there came a great kerfuffle of hadedas out in the valley, as the airwaves were hastily adjusted.*

We can go through my shortcomings till the cows come home, and ja, writing is one of them.. Get over it and keep up, or go find something less taxing to do...
How many years has it been since I first tried to figure out the bounce-off point for the early warning alarm that's rigged up to ours?
For the third morning in a row I'd barely lifted my head above the windowsill and Telkom's Wirelessed Warbler had kicked off instantaneously.. Usually it's just the piercing and telltale squeak, squeak, squeak, but I guess Agent Balliram has this 'birdcall' marked on his calendar for around about this time of year, and he feels obliged to employ it..?
I'd gotten up and gone out onto the verandah to wait while the dogs did their business, and I'd listened with amusement at how he bounces that call from box to box, right down to No. 2, and then back up the valley..
For the second day in a row there's solid cloud-cover out there, although the pathway remains as dry as a bone, and I'm guessing the damp air is sufficient to achieve the Weatherman's goals without it actually raining...

The family had been out at the shops yesterday afternoon at around 3.30pm, and I'd been sitting here at the desk reading the newspapers when a loud bang had broken the silence, and had set Sophie off into a frenzy of hysterical barking...   I wasn't going to bother investigating the noise, but Madam's frantic yapping eventually had me trundling down the passage to find the TV screen had lost the signal and there were messages coming up to say so.. The decoder was still alive but the channel number was gone, so I switched the screen off and left it to scan itself before coming back here to the study... At 3.45pm I went and had another look and the decoder was still mucking about, and by 3.50pm it had died completely, and I'd finally figured out we'd had some sort of bizarre power failure.. Doh! Was that thump the sound of the television's power point taking a massive surge?

I'd called No. 33 to check how far the damage went, and he'd confirmed that the power had gone out at 3.30pm, but not all at once.. His kitchen light had begun flickering badly before it went out, and his telly only some time after that.. I established later in the evening that we'd been the lucky ones, when I'd called Sue the Book at No. 5.. Her son had been home at the time, and said that all the lights had suddenly gone extremely bright, before the bulbs began to pop and smoke filled the rooms.. A powerpoint had exploded, while another had shot out an enormous spark, and she feared they may have lost more than just their television in the process...(It also should be said at this point that she says she's been suffering terrible stomach cramps this past week, and I can assume that it's not been sufficient to bombard her with the Abdomen frequency, but to do her appliances a mischief as well?)
As it happened, godschild had also called earlier to check whether we had power, and had muttered something about his plugs giving off sparks as well.. Hmmm..

Where was our Controller at 3.30pm yesterday afternoon, and what had caused that bang nearby?  Was it a massive unpremeditated error, or just more carefully engineered mischief? Hell, you tell me... No wonder Jaquie Subban couldn't put an estimate on how long it would take before the Smart City Project installations would be completed, and no wonder the City Manager hasn't replied to my Vice Chair's queries on the subject...
Nine frigging years since the trial devices were first rigged to our streetlights, and we're still putting up with this destructive nonsense?

I found a note just now to say that the power was finally restored at 10.35pm.. That's a fairly decent 7and a half hour loadshed right there, and it should keep Balliram's Masters happy for a while before he shuts us down again...
I'd gone down to Springfield Park yesterday mid-morning, only to discover great stretches of lights on Umgeni Road, and a whole bunch of other streets, were activated, so it goes without saying someone's going to be switched off to recoup those losses...
Which of Agent Balliram's Graduates had thought they were holding the fort yesterday at 3.30pm?  Which of the several recruits surrounding us had been told to captain the ship until the Knob's return?
Could the Sadist himself have triggered that massive surge from a far-off location, merely by dialling a number? I'd have to bet that's a yes, and I'd also lay odds that not one of the Recruits took any real damage to their own appliances at the time, although I'd be delighted to hear I'm wrong on that score..

Why I keep going back to THIS white object that sits at the entry point to my Excellent Neighbour's roof, I couldn't say... As far as I know that's the Telkom landline cable that feeds in to No. 10 at that point, and the only reason I've brought it up is that we don't have a similar object on our line, and as far as I'm aware, they don't have an active landline..
Am I wrong on that count as well?  Would they just rather use their cellphones to communicate with me, for some obscure reason?  What you don't know, and will never get to hear, is the real reason behind that nasty display of power, during which it would appear, Sue the Book's little home and her appliances bore the brunt of the destruction... I'm well aware of our Area Controller's habit of overhearing something that suddenly irritates him into reacting spitefully over the powerlines..  His uncontrollable penchant for retaliating immediately with some form of payback, is well-known to you by now...

You tend to forget or ignore the fact that we're talking about unqualified civilians manning the electricity feeds to ratepayer's homes here, and if you were a fully-fledged Electrical Engineer, the idea should in fact appall you... You're hardened to it by now, Allen?  It's a necessity you've had to get used to, in order to achieve The Goal? *studies the Superintendent of Electricity for Durban....   With all the electrical fires these cowboys are causing across town, I should STFU and consider we got off lightly yesterday?  Really?  Mygod man, have you totally lost the plot, or WHAT?
However you try and dress it up, we have here a Controller who, after nine years, is regarded by some as an Expert in the Field.. An excuse for a human-being who has been embraced by the so-called White Hats, and allowed to continue his reign of terror unabated....

It's out of your hands?  How convenient... It was out of your grubby hands the day you stood on my verge and lied to me by omission, and with such obvious enjoyment, although I doubt you knew it back then... Have you yourself killed anyone yet?  Has the wiring-up of a specific home by you personally, led to an occupant's death?  Do the Project Authors have a scripted mantra in place to deal with these eventualities?  Some sort of trauma-counselling support team who hasten to brainwash you into believing you're not guilty, and you can go on about your business with a clear conscience?
Does it get easier to shrug off the cancers and illnesses you leave behind you as you wire up each and every home and business to The Grid, and the unqualified recruits barrel on in over their powerlines to flood those establishments with often deadly amounts of EMR?
Geeze, Mistuh Spence, I know you're as much a pawn in this ghastly game as we are, but it's guaranteed you're a comfortably well-off pawn.. Unlike my friend Sue the Book, who simply can't afford to replace items that are lost to Balliram's spite...
Fingers crossed the damage in this instance wasn't as bad as it appeared to be, and if it was, are you going to fix it? Hah!

Shortly after the Naibobi massacre I'd posted a comment on a thread over at the Carte Blanche FB wall, and I guess most of you know what happened after that..
Yep, there was my Extreme Fugliness on your telly screens on Sunday, holding forth on the visit made to ours by the Pretoria Hawks... It was quite a shock to see my own sun-ravaged face, and to hear my abrasive cigarette-laden croak I tell you, but what's done is done..
Of course, I'd had a whole lot more to say at the time, and I can't help smiling when I think of the faces of those who viewed all that footage before editing it down to two seconds.. *chokes..

Will they keep it, or has it already been safely deleted and forgotten?  I'd had the Daily News on the phone yesterday, wanting to do a follow-up article, and I'd said that in my opinion it was now old news, and that I felt that Samantha Lewthwaite's name had been tossed into the pot merely to spice up the situation, and that she'd probably not been involved at all, so I didn't have anything further to say on the matter...
Luckily my Vice Chair had called me later on to say the Daily News were doing the piece anyway, and were going to use my recorded telephone conversation with their journo, Noeleen, to pad it out...  Unethical?  Sure it is, but hey, a story is a story, and it'll be interesting to see what words they put into my fat mouth, if indeed they use them at all..

My family are frankly horrified by all this attention, and let me know in no uncertain terms.. Has this dissuaded me from plodding on? Hell, you know me better than that...
It is after all, my role to provide an example of just what can happen to you should you dare to go up against the Big Boys behind the quantum laser/wireless push to rule the world...  A job that I will continue to do, despite that my puny efforts are considered a joke, and will change nothing in the long run...
At least you won't be able to say I didn't warn you from the outset, that you're playing with fire...

LATER at 7.45am

I'd fallen back on board Cloud 9 at 5.30am, to rest my burning eyes.. I was roused delightfully (and I mean that literally), shortly after 6am, although I wasn't quick enough to avoid the savage jab to my cancer that followed a minute later..
Can I ask you something?
Was collective offense taken at my ravaged appearance on Carte Blanche, to the extent that that massive spike to our television was set to go off at precisely the time there was a re-run of that insert underway?  Did Balliram talk one of his Graduates through the procedure from a distant, and therefore guilt-free location outside of the Zone?  Which one of you would like to claim credit for that nauseating display of power?  Unqualified eejit that I am, I'm certainly not naive enough to overlook the obvious.. You have a grand day now, and stay safe..
Peace..  Edit at 10.59am.  Just had a text from Sue to say the electrician is there, and so far they have lost their microwave and her bed-ridden mother's television set, plus a foot pedal for the boy's electric guitar. They have yet to check the PVR and the laptop.  Jubilation in the criminal ranks? *vomits..

---oOo---

Tuesday 8th October 2013 at 10.49am..