power cuts in London

It's all OK round Old Street tho and we've had two big power cuts in the last three months

Bizarronspiracy Weekly are suggesting that following the USA's successful little experiment they're now trying the same thing here on a lesser scale...

as opposed to the usual 30? daaaam

so glad i don't use the tube

BBC news rightly pointed out how horrible it's going to be if people are still trying to get home when it gets dark if the street lights are out.

Where's home Joe? The centre of town looks almost gridlocked on the tv, and all the major south main line train stations are down. 60% of tube network is down, but it's no doubt having knock on effects on the rest of the service.

network rail says between 500 and 1000 trains have been affected.

(London-AP) -- Exactly two weeks after New York and other parts of the Northeast were hit by a blackout -- people in London are seeing one as well.
Power is out in parts of the British capital, and in southeastern England.
There are serious disruptions on the London Underground and on some train lines.
Utility officials say the power appears to be out in parts of south London and in Kent, which is southeast of the city.

Our friends from California are visiting (still en route from Oxford), so they'll be used to the basic premise, if not the sheer level of chaos.

Eventually I get on the 5th bus that comes along, the 77 to Tooting. My umbrella is crushed by the force of people pushing against me. On the bus I find myself standing next to an irate Irishman offering a squash-playing yuppie outside, and chat to Vicky on my brick-sized reserve mobile phone as I know Chris must be going through even worse shit than I am. 2 hours and 40 minutes after I set off, I traipse woefully through my front door, to find Stevie lying in a pool of his own blood and vomit on the kitchen floor.

Okay, not the last bit. But it was a pain in the arse nevertheless.

(addendum - considering how irate I always get on ILE, you'd have beeen astounded at my almost zen-like calm and patience this evening. I certainly astyounded myself. Perhaps it was the mental picture I had of Cabbage literally exploding that gave me inner peace :))

A ridiculously overworked friend who had been complaining about a pounding headache all day finally made it home at 9.00. Ouch.

5.45 leave work to meet sister at Victoria

6.00 get off met and onto the Picadilly line at Rayners lane

6.20 severe delays at Sudbury hill, get off train to go to overland station only to find I had just missed the last one of the day.

6.30 walk back over bridge to find the train I had just left about to set off, nice driver waits for me and I bound on, only to find it's going as far as Alperton.

6.40 get off at Alperton and wait for a 275 to Wembley Central (or possibly Willesedn, maybe to link up with a 98)

timings get a bit sketchy now.....

Get to Wembley central (floor flooded, tiptoe through) and ask ifd the overland is running, get the reply "yes, the Euston train has just pulled into platform 6 (the far end, natch) run across flooded concourse and just manage to get the train by pulling the doors aopart as they close.

hear that Central London is completely mullered so get off at Queens park.

wait for a 206 to Brondesbury Park.

Manage that nicely and only have to wait 10 minutes or so for a (very packed) train

(this is where I start losing it)

Get off at Gospel Oak, to get the Barking line, only to hear that there are severe delays on that due to a truck hitting a bridge in Wanstead. Decide that I'll get onthe next Hackney bound train and then get a bus.

Barking train pulls up at same time as next Hackney train

Ask driver whether the Barking train will go soon, he replies "yes, about ten minutes"

I sit down, happy in the knowledge that I'll be soon home.....

ten minutes later "please leave this train, it is defective"

I implode

Wait another twenty minutes for a hackney train

get off in Hacney central, chucking it down and wait 15 minutes for a bus

Bus only goes as far as the bakers arms and then no 97 turns up to take me to the bell so I get a 230 that goes to Walthanmstow central.

Walk home from there via chippy

Walk through door at quarter to ten.

postscript:
get back up again at 10.30 to go and pick up sister from Tottenham Hale.

after going to euston, then euston square: nothing so i went to the bus stop. it was raining heavily and while waiting (took abt half hour to get on the bus) a taxi goes buy, some guy is holding on to the side door and skiing across the road, he trips and falls while the cab is doing 30-40. I try to have a look but somehow he just disappears (!!!).

I get on the bus, it crashes onto a taxi, another 15 mins lost while the driver get each other's the details.

get to charing cross, get on the first train, the 'fast' train to sidcup: goes at snail's pace and I'm standing most of the way.

get to sidcup, miss the 51, wait 10 more mins for the next one. get to welling, wait 20 more mins for the 96.

I did read lots of Ursula le guin book i had tho'.

SOuth London is rubbidge - haha.

went to flick about on the telly for info and was thrilled to watch that great bastion of rolling news journalism - the itv news channel. my favouritest bits were "and we are looking at waterloo station where the eurostar we can see is not moving" (cut to grainy footage of blackfriars bridge and a knackered old three-carriage commuter train) and "as we can see from these pictures the london eye has ground to a halt" (grainy footage of london eye moving round at normal speed)

managed to get home about 9.15pm, the experience wasn't too miserable but I got really, really fucked off when I realised that I'd missed house doctor ;-(

Favorite bit was on the News at Ten when the man coming live from London's Waterloo station was cut off halfway through his piece. Smug man in studio turns (suspiciously quickly) to camera and says "Looks like we're having our own power cut problems" I think they just pulled the plug cos' he was boring everyone with talk of ringmains.

I just wish the Eye had stopped when Blaine was strapped to it. Then we could have had Uri Geller/Blaine type warlock wars.

get on tube at about 6:23. at 6:26 the tube stops and the lights go off. luckily i notice a spare seat and sit down (there were in fact enough seats for everyone - i was very glad i wasn't on say the picadilly line at this time). the only lights are the ones in the tunnel but it's enough to read by. after 15mins the driver says that there's a major power failure, his radio isn't working and he's having to communicate with south ken via mobile phone, and he suspects we'll be there for a while and then have to evacuate.

after 30mins or so i realise that listening to throbbing gristle's "heathen land" isn't doing my nerves any good, so i switch it off. after 45mins we finally get going again, crawl the last 100yards into south ken, and are all told to leave the station.

outside it's complete chaos, and i'm already beginning to think i might have to walk all the way to crouch end. it's also pissing down with rain and i have just a t-shirt and no umbrella. i seek out buses into town, but there are 100s of people at the bus stop and no buses stopping. then a 14 goes past and a few people are getting off, so everyone runs across the road at it. they're doing one on one off, and i'm fifth in line but only four are allowed on. thankfully the guy in front of me is with someone so ducks out, and i get on.

i'm the last person allowed on the bus until green park, although plenty of people try - one woman refuses to go until the conductor threatens to call the police, and even then only does so grudgingly. at one point we stop at traffic lights and the conductor runs off to talk to the driver, leaving me to tell irate members of the public that they can't come on cos the bus is full. amazingly they obey me.

finally get to tcr just after 8. looking around it's complete chaos, i can't see myself getting a cab or a bus, but i decide to walk up to euston anyway, with a vague hope of hitching from there. i get there and again there are loads of people, but lots of people are getting off 91s, so there appears to be a chance of getting on one. tube workers come out to tell people that the tube is running again, but i don't fancy risking it and jam myself into a 91.

unbelievably several people have boarded the bus at euston to get to king's x (!!!), and it takes a good 20mins to crawl round there. after that it's relatively plain sailing, though, and i make it to anna's at 8:50, just in time for mussels + baked camembert + bread + wine, all of which added up to just about the best meal ever.

Then we decide to wander into Peckham. Huh what's going on? Blockbusters closed, Safeways closed? We then see a sign about power failure and think COR BLIMEY London downtime!! WE attempt to look at trains at Peckham Rye, but see a sign saying "no trains in entire south east london area" so decide to give up on the plan of trying to get back to WAlthamstow via overground services.

We then hop on the first 12 that comes along (well empty, although loads of ppl waiting at bus stop) and after an HOUR (is this normal Peckham people???) get to Oxford Circus where all power is GO and I buy ELECTION at HMV and Lixi gets Das Cabinet Des Dr Caligari and NOSFERATU. We then go to to Oxford Circus, find it shut, wander down to TCR (the number of people waiting for buses by then is silly) - this is roundabout 8.30ish. HURRAH HURRAH TCR is working and we hie to Euston. At Euston we have to wait about 10 minutes or so then an emptyish Victoria line train arrives and takes us straight to WAlthamstow, despite what seems like HOURS waiting at Seven Sisters.

All in all not bad, the worst bit was the journey into town from Peckham.

Hooray for Streatham?

it was indeed very funny seeing people used to being underground having no idea where they were. it became slightly less funny when they crowded buses to go 200yds, though.

I had no idea it was a power shortage as I was rather drunk throughout.

WTF. We had one on our street at midnight last night for an hour and a half. Just went out for lunch and there's another power cut all the way down Brewer St in Soho. OK so that's 10 miles away from where I live but bit of a coincidence?

Probably the work of Wade, Dacre and Clifford.

I dare say. Damn government giving into the meejah again.

but it's a good story

you mean A Good Story

Might as well vote in the Nazis now and get it over with.

prob unconnected but we were without water for a while last night in dalston

WTF. We had one on our street at midnight last night for an hour and a half. Just went out for lunch and there's another power cut all the way down Brewer St in Soho. OK so that's 10 miles away from where I live but bit of a coincidence?

Cynical, or just being honest?

Hmmm - we also had no water last night! I presumed it was our crappy plumbing.