So I was sitting on the couch last Tuesday evening, quietly degesting my dinner and ogling the goggle box. It's not a common occurence for me to be at home watching telly on a Tuesday evening and now I know why - there's nothing on! I do believe I was watching one of those shows about people trying to buy houses. Ugh, reality TV. What evil dick thought of that concept? Anyway, I was saved from the tedium by the TV suddenly going 'pop' and switching off. "Hunh," thought I "another power cut." There had been a thunder storm the week before which I think effected the electrics because my alarm clock had reset itself while I was out. I settled down with the new Jasper Fford book to wait for the electricity to come back on. It had been a while and I was starting to wonder if it was just me but I had to pop out to the shop and all the lights were off there as well so I was reassured. I went back to Jasper Fford and lit candles when the sun went down.
The next morning I still had no power so I phoned the Scottish Power emergency line and after telling it my address and postcode (I'm SO dubious of that technology!) the automated message lady told me they were aware of a fault in my area. This was after waking up with the horrible realisation that I have an electric shower in my flat. Waily! Blithely accepting that Scottish Power had everything in hand I packed a towel and some shampoo and toddled off to work. The shower at work isn't great but it was better than no wash at all so I could get on with my day without feeling too greasy and smelly. I phoned for regular updates throughout the day and at half past four in the afternoon was told that everyone's power was back on, except one customer who had agreed to have it kept off in the meantime.
However, when I got home it soon became apparent that I still did not have any power. When I phoned Scottish Power back the silly lassie on the line actually suggested I was the one that had agreed to have my power kept off. If that was the case why the Hell would I be phoning to complain??? Gah! Anyhoo, they said they'd log the fault and an engineer would contact me. Did they? Did they doodah! I probably should have phoned back earlier than I did but I was hacked off and went to Zoe's for sustenance and electric lighting. The upshot was that when I got home at about 11pm I still had no power. That was when I discovered that my supply of tea lights had been tidied and I had no idea where they were so the Bruce Lee candle that Barney gave me for Xmas a few years ago was finally lit. It's had a good run as The Most Tacktastic Piece of Tat I've Ever Been Given but finally it was useful!
Once I'd set fire to Bruce Lee's head I took a deep breath and called Scottish Power again. The lassie who answered my call sounded about 15 years old and had the customer service skills of a 15 year old too. She was so unhelpful that I ended up hanging up on her in tears. Although to give Scottish Power their due, they phoned me back 3 minutes later to say there was an engineer in the area who would pop in and have a look at it for me. Apparently you don't often get this kind of service - but I don't see why not after over 24 hours with no electricity, especially seeing as everyone in the call centre seemed to be utterly clueless.
So the engineer came up and poked around and wandered about. Unfortunately he couldn't do anything about the power being off without access to the basement of the building, which is storerooms for the University. At least it put my mind at rest that it wasn't just me being a spakker or due to my refusing to risk life and limb balancing on a chair in the pitch black in a flat on my own to flick some switch which I'd flicked earlier that day to no effect. Apparently the University had agreed to have the power kept off down there in the meantime but I think the whole rest of the stair was cut off as well. Nobody else had complained but the Scottish Power engineer said he thought he saw candles in the flat next door to me as well. This could just have been my Italian gigolo neighbour entertaining a young lady though.
I eventually got power back on Thursday morning, in time to shower before work, but the stair lights are still out - almost a week later. I suppose I'll have to phone and complain about that too but I keep forgetting to note down the number for stair lighting complaints. In the meantime I'm carrying a torch about in my handbag. Sigh.
Oh, and PS
http://www.jasperfforde.com/
:oD
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