The following news article found its way into my inbox yesterday
Electricity supplies are expected to return to normal following countrywide blackouts, the National Grid has said. Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across London, Cheshire, Merseyside and East Anglia were affected on Tuesday. Blackouts were caused by Sizewell B nuclear plant in Suffolk and Longanett coal-fired station in Scotland going off-line within minutes of each other. In total, nine generating units across the country became unavailable. Stuart Larque, spokesman for the National Grid, said: "We think it will be a case of business as usual. We have a very robust system in the UK.
"It rarely fails and that's why everybody is talking about it so much." The blackouts were caused by the opposite of a power surge as the National Grid deactivated local stations to maintain the required 50hz frequency. When demand is greater than generation, the system fails, the National Grid said. David Porter, chief executive of the Association of Electricity Producers, which represents the companies that generate the UK's electricity, said the problem was caused by several smaller issues that occurred at the same time.
"It was a huge coincidence. A couple of large power stations just within a few minutes of each other suffered breakdowns and the loss of power was more than the system is designed to take.
"People were without power for 30 or 40 minutes I believe. Everybody in the industry is very sorry but it doesn't happen very often." Independent energy consultancy, McKinnon and Clarke, has advised the government to build new power stations or face further power cuts.
David Hunter, energy analyst at McKinnon and Clarke, said: "The government's inability to make long-term energy security decisions over the last decade is coming home to roost. "Since the 'dash for gas' in the 1990s, the lack of political will to make tough decisions has left Britain short of power
I must admit that when this ‘news’ was discussed amongst the staff, it was with an air of great hilarity!! In fact one person was heard to comment, ‘If the power only went off here for 30-40 minutes we would be wondering what’s wrong!”
I may have mentioned this before but we experience power cuts, on an almost daily basis and on average they last for a couple of hours at a time. I am in fact typing this an hour into today’s blackout! Thankfully houses here (at least I my area) are equipped with the necessities to keep going, I now have in my new apartment both a UPS (uninterrupted power supply) which is basically two car batteries in my pantry and a back up generator. The UPS is great and switches on automatically as soon as the power goes off. I can’t power the AC but the fans and the lights stay on which makes life bearable. I can also power the TV but that tends to drain the batteries quite quickly so I have switched off for the moment just in case, so that I don’t have to go down and switch the generator on!
The chowkidar(gate keeper) at my new place is nice enough but he’s not Farukh! I think I was a little spoiled by Farukh and Yacoob just doesn’t measure up. I have come home today to find that Yacoob has gone on leave for two months and been replaced by Nasir. All this is organized by the landlord, but I do miss the reliability of Farukh!!
The last couple of weeks have been taken up with exams and planning for next year. We now only have three weeks left until the end of term and there are reports to be written and a timetable to produce as well as all the other end of term stuff.
Stewart and I did go and take the theory part of our PADI course last week and I am pleased to say that we both passed and are now fully qualified open water divers.
I am now also almost at the half way stage with my ‘cross channel swim’ having completed 10 miles. Just 11 miles left and I am still hopeful that I will make it before I leave. The pool at the Avari is lovely and it is great to arrive at the open air pool side and read on the notice board ‘Air Temperature 34 degrees’ and “Pool temperature 34 degrees’!! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again ‘It’s hard life, but someone’s got to do it’ and I’m extremely grateful that it’s me..
Thursday, 29 May 2008
Sunday, 18 May 2008
You gotta love em...
And by them, I mean the Government of Pakistan! In an effort to be seen to be ‘doing something’ the new Government has come up with a plan to safe energy. Now energy is a major problem here in Pakistan, particularly in the big cities like Karachi. In the last twenty years Karachi has doubled in size from 8 million to 16 million residents, with no increase in the number of power stations. This means that power cuts are a regular part of life in Karachi, with an average of at least one power cut every day. These last from between a few minutes to several hours and at the very least frustrating and in some cases very unpleasant.
So you are asking yourself, what great idea have the government come up with to solve this problem, are they going build more power stations? No! Start a programme to remove all the illegal connections that place an added strain on an already over stretched system? No! No our great and glorious government has decided to introduce, Pakistan Summer Time!! So on June 1st the clocks will go forward by one hour, this is a vain effort to save energy. You see the problem here is not the light, but the heat. The biggest user of electricity in Karachi, has got to be the millions of AC units that are running constantly at this time of the year. Unfortunately, moving the clocks will not help with this as many people run AC all day and all night. It will however, create havoc as it did 5 years ago, as a large number of people can’t tell time and don’t wear a watch!!
I have completed my house move and now happily ensconced in my new house. Most of the little jobs are complete and the cable and internet have been switched on. I will be taking some photos and showing you around in the next couple of days. The most amazing thing about the move was that when Worldcall came to switch on the cable and the internet, on both occasions they were on time!! Now that is a rare occurrence in the U.K. it is almost unheard of here!
Last night I was at the British Deputy High Commission (BDHC) for the St George’s Day Ball. Yes I know St George’s Day is 23rd April, but for some reason we were delayed until last night. The Ball was being held in aid of the Children’s Museum of Peace and Human Rights, which is managed by the husband of one of my colleagues from school. I was also involved in the evening as I was called upon to give the history of St George and propose the toast. It was a very pleasant evening and I finally rolled in just before 1 a.m., the latest I have ever returned home whilst I have been here.
This week has been a busy one as the IGCSE, GCSE and A levels are in full force. Our distance from the UK does make life a little more difficult for us as well, as exams need to be sat at the same time here as they are in the UK, this meant that I was at school until 7.15 p.m. on Thursday evening having reached school at 7a.m.! Now I thought that one of the good things about being a teacher was the ‘short; hours…
So you are asking yourself, what great idea have the government come up with to solve this problem, are they going build more power stations? No! Start a programme to remove all the illegal connections that place an added strain on an already over stretched system? No! No our great and glorious government has decided to introduce, Pakistan Summer Time!! So on June 1st the clocks will go forward by one hour, this is a vain effort to save energy. You see the problem here is not the light, but the heat. The biggest user of electricity in Karachi, has got to be the millions of AC units that are running constantly at this time of the year. Unfortunately, moving the clocks will not help with this as many people run AC all day and all night. It will however, create havoc as it did 5 years ago, as a large number of people can’t tell time and don’t wear a watch!!
I have completed my house move and now happily ensconced in my new house. Most of the little jobs are complete and the cable and internet have been switched on. I will be taking some photos and showing you around in the next couple of days. The most amazing thing about the move was that when Worldcall came to switch on the cable and the internet, on both occasions they were on time!! Now that is a rare occurrence in the U.K. it is almost unheard of here!
Last night I was at the British Deputy High Commission (BDHC) for the St George’s Day Ball. Yes I know St George’s Day is 23rd April, but for some reason we were delayed until last night. The Ball was being held in aid of the Children’s Museum of Peace and Human Rights, which is managed by the husband of one of my colleagues from school. I was also involved in the evening as I was called upon to give the history of St George and propose the toast. It was a very pleasant evening and I finally rolled in just before 1 a.m., the latest I have ever returned home whilst I have been here.
This week has been a busy one as the IGCSE, GCSE and A levels are in full force. Our distance from the UK does make life a little more difficult for us as well, as exams need to be sat at the same time here as they are in the UK, this meant that I was at school until 7.15 p.m. on Thursday evening having reached school at 7a.m.! Now I thought that one of the good things about being a teacher was the ‘short; hours…
Monday, 5 May 2008
Lights, Camera, Action...
Sometimes you get some very strange phone calls!!
On Saturday afternoon I received a phone call from a young lady named Samina, who was a colleague of George’s. Who is George I hear you ask? George is a friend of my friend Andrew (the one responsible for me being here in the first place). George is married to Kiran and together they are Karachi’s answer to ‘Richard and Judy’. They present ‘George aur Kiran’ on Arg TV.
Samina had called me because she was looking for a white, middle aged, British man with a British accent. I was able to confirm that I fitted the build, though does 37 count as middle aged?
Samina was looking for this gentleman as she was trying to find an actor to fulfill a small role in a docudrama that her company was filming this weekend in Karachi, and was I interested filling this role. The part was of a rather unhelpful, staff member of the British High Commission (BHC) in Islamabad, who had been called to the Afghani border to help, a British Citizen, of Indian descendent, who had been arrested by the Pakistani authorities with an incorrect visa at the border and then charged with spying.
This is based on the true story of a British journalist, Amardeep Bassey who had travelled to Kabul after September 11th to look at the aftermath.
I decided that all this sounded like a fun, so on Sunday I went to meet some of the production team so that they check out my ‘physical appearance’ to see if I fitted the role. I passed this audition and was invited back to film the scene today. There was no dialogue to learn as we were improvising based on the actually events and so all I had to do was be disinterested and annoyed at being involved in this whole affair. In fact the man from the BHC informed Amardeep, that should he be convicted of the spying charge then he faced 15 years in jail, but at least someone from the BHC would visit him every 12 months to check on him!!
If anyone ever tells you that life on a film set is glamorous then they are wrong. We spent about 90 minutes shooting a scene that will probably last about 3-4 minutes on the screen. We shot the whole thing from 6 different angles, and between each shot my ‘sweat’ was topped up, from a spray bottle!!
It was great fun and Samina has taken my card and may call on me again in the future,
The production was actually being made for the National Geographic Channel and Channel 5, so I will be appearing on a screen near you (if you are resident in the UK) some time in the autumn. The Programme is called ‘Trouble in Paradise’ and this episode 8 ‘Afghanistan’ so watch out for it and let me know what you think.
I’m ready for my close up, Mr B. DeMille…
On Saturday afternoon I received a phone call from a young lady named Samina, who was a colleague of George’s. Who is George I hear you ask? George is a friend of my friend Andrew (the one responsible for me being here in the first place). George is married to Kiran and together they are Karachi’s answer to ‘Richard and Judy’. They present ‘George aur Kiran’ on Arg TV.
Samina had called me because she was looking for a white, middle aged, British man with a British accent. I was able to confirm that I fitted the build, though does 37 count as middle aged?
Samina was looking for this gentleman as she was trying to find an actor to fulfill a small role in a docudrama that her company was filming this weekend in Karachi, and was I interested filling this role. The part was of a rather unhelpful, staff member of the British High Commission (BHC) in Islamabad, who had been called to the Afghani border to help, a British Citizen, of Indian descendent, who had been arrested by the Pakistani authorities with an incorrect visa at the border and then charged with spying.
This is based on the true story of a British journalist, Amardeep Bassey who had travelled to Kabul after September 11th to look at the aftermath.
I decided that all this sounded like a fun, so on Sunday I went to meet some of the production team so that they check out my ‘physical appearance’ to see if I fitted the role. I passed this audition and was invited back to film the scene today. There was no dialogue to learn as we were improvising based on the actually events and so all I had to do was be disinterested and annoyed at being involved in this whole affair. In fact the man from the BHC informed Amardeep, that should he be convicted of the spying charge then he faced 15 years in jail, but at least someone from the BHC would visit him every 12 months to check on him!!
If anyone ever tells you that life on a film set is glamorous then they are wrong. We spent about 90 minutes shooting a scene that will probably last about 3-4 minutes on the screen. We shot the whole thing from 6 different angles, and between each shot my ‘sweat’ was topped up, from a spray bottle!!
It was great fun and Samina has taken my card and may call on me again in the future,
The production was actually being made for the National Geographic Channel and Channel 5, so I will be appearing on a screen near you (if you are resident in the UK) some time in the autumn. The Programme is called ‘Trouble in Paradise’ and this episode 8 ‘Afghanistan’ so watch out for it and let me know what you think.
I’m ready for my close up, Mr B. DeMille…
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