It may surprise no one that one of my favourite Hammer films is Quatermass and the Pit. What’s maybe more surprising is that I can spell Quatermass, and that I know off the top of my head it was written by Nigel Kneale. In the film, scientists and archaeologists are digging up what turns out to be a spaceship at an underground station called Hobb’s End, and a workman forgets some piece of equipment so has to go back down alone. No! Don’t do it! While there, the power goes off, and he tuts, saying, ‘Where was Moses when the lights went out?’
Hold that thought.
There may well have been many people saying just that on Symi last night when, somewhere during the first act of the smash hit comedy, Belgium Vs France, the lights went out across the island. (At least they did up here.) This went on (or off) for a short time, and then they came back on. It always takes a while for the internet router to reboot when this happens, and we’d just got it back and were preparing to watch a new film on Netflix, when it went off again. On off, on off… the power station was under attack from overuse. Too many people using aircon is the easiest place to lay the blame, though there are no doubt others.
There will be letters in dispatches and on social media, some offering disgruntlement, others offering solutions they have no idea how to implement. Some will be laying blame at the door of the electricity company for having an old power station when they know nothing about its working (as don’t I, except I know those who work there work bloomin’ hard), while others, such as myself, will simply adapt and survive.
It’s a shame that the entertainment was disturbed for those watching young men in shorts running around and falling over in distress every time someone came near them, but that’s how it is when you rely on electricity for your entertainment.
As you rely on it to stay cool – which is where I start to have an issue. If the island is selling itself as the new St Tropez of the local seas, then it’s got to be up to the self-set challenge, right? I mean, new marinas in small bays, posh sun loungers at between €5.00 and €25.00 a pop (includes free bottle of water worth €0.50), and if we’re going for swanky restaurants, boutique hotels and shops, and if we’re outpricing Mr and Mrs Average in favour of Lord and Lady Over-Demanding-Twat, then things have to be in place to support it all. By things I mean, infrastructure: enough power supply, enough water, more medical staff, you know… things.
“Come to Symi for top-class cuisine, park your super yacht and take no notice of the plebs eating cake in the dark.” Maybe that’s the new advertising slogan for a place that is reaching further than its ability to cope with what it wants to grasp.
I don’t know the answer and I don’t pretend to. This, as usual, is only my early morning, first-thought jotting, but I am pretty sure we’re going to see more of these blackouts. Or not see them – if you see what I mean. As Adriana wrote, this is only July 1st. We have yet to suffer the hordes of car-bringing, aircon-guzzling visitors of the big European holiday month of August. ‘Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night,’ as Bette Davis said when playing Margot Channing in All About Eve.
Anyway…
Back to that thought you’ve been holding. Where was Moses when the lights went out?
That line has stuck in my mind since I first watched Quatermass and the Pit when I was a preteen. Mainly, because I thought it was a ridiculous expression. This morning, though, I looked up where it might have come from, and I found the fascinating answer. Firstly, it’s a joke (allegedly). Where was Moses when the lights went out? Answer: In the dark.
Everyone fall down in hysterics and roll around on the floor like a recently tackled football diva. Yawn.
Alternatively, and to my mind, more interestingly, how about: Vaudeville, 1901 and Bert Williams. More details? Try this: It’s a 78 rpm, Mono, Single-sided shellac 10” recorded in Philadelphia, USA, on 11th October 1901 by, and I quote: … the best-selling black artist of the pre-Great [First World] War era. However, the song was first published in 1878, and it was that which led to the creation of the alleged joke. Bert’s version had different lyrics.
If you’re as nerdy as me about such things, you can find a lot more detail here, including the story told within the song.
A story that, usurpingly, is all to do with a blackout. Get used to it.
