Power cuts and population explosions
23rd June, 2007
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To dob or not to dob, therein lies the question. We were enjoying a barely drinkable red at a friend's place one recent Sunday eve when he beckoned me to join him in a dimly lit corner of the yard. For a moment I was certain he was going to produce an illicit substance and I prepared to say "thanks, but no thanks".
I take a no-drugs stance for two reasons: I'm paranoid enough without drugs adding to my anxieties and my youthful experiments with marijuana left me either giggling uncontrollably on the floor for hours or staring zombie-like at the wall. I once spent an entire night in a toilet, sitting on the pedestal and staring at the toilet roll holder on the back of the door. If this was fun, they could have it. Forget the joint and pass the booze. I need not have worried for there was no illicit substance, just a tall fence. "Listen," he said, pressing his ear against the pailings. I did the same and immediately heard it, the unmistakable "sssssss" of a sprinkler system running at low pressure. His neighbour was a water cheat, irrigating his garden in the deep of the night.
"Funny thing," I said. "I noticed how green his front lawn was the other day compared with the rest of the street. Dob him in?" I asked without much conviction, for, reared on the three classic working-class commandments - never dob, stick up for your mates and take care of your mother - I found the dobbing concept distasteful.
Come the day outside watering is banned completely it will become even more divisive an issue, for it will mean that anyone who has any kind of garden at all is cheating unless he has a tank. But what's to stop him quietly topping up his tank with the hose? Not a thing. Electricity rationing will be next, as power stations that have already reduced their output cut it further because of the lack of water to cool their turbines. Old enough to vaguely remember the blackouts that occurred during the industrial disputes of the Bjelke-Petersen era, I have added "hurricane lamp" to next week's shopping list. What a joy it was in those days to be sitting and watching television when suddenly the power went off and both house and TV screen were plunged into darkness. If you had an electric hot water system, you could look forward to a cold shower in the morning. People with electric stoves either bought gas-powered camp cookers or got used to eating sandwiches or cold baked beans for dinner. Anyone with a gas stove would find acquaintances from the other side of town arriving unannounced on the doorstep at dinner time. After a cold dinner eaten by candlelight and with the TV screen blank, restaurants and pubs blacked out or running on emergency generators and the streets unlit, citizens were forced to seek other forms of evening entertainment. Some tried reading by candlelight, which sounds romantic but can be potentially deadly if you doze off and the book catches fire, and I speak from experience. Others saw this as an opportunity to get the family to bond over the Scrabble board. Most, faced with the prospect of another night spent staring at all-too familiar faces across a table, simply went to bed early. This led to an explosion in the birth rate nine months later and one wonders how many Queenslanders today owe their existence to the ungodly combination of the late Joh Bjelke-Petersen and the Electrical Trades Union. As the lights begin to flicker, so will all those air-conditioners or reverse cycle and electric heaters. So along with the candles, Scrabble board and ever reliable hurricane lamp, you should lay in a few spare doonas just in case. Perhaps some eyeshades and earplugs might come in handy as well. All the better to enable you to pretend to be comatose should your partner, his or her sense of romanticism stirring, tap you on the shoulder and indulge in some classic Australian foreplay - "You awake?" |
