Could you not have borrowed a torch from a neighbour?

Most people seem to use their mobile phones as torches. Mine doesn't have the feature and my son's was flat. My neighbours did give me a couple of tea light candles but the light from them was terrible, apart from when I set the end of my hair alight when visibility dramatically improved - briefly.

For power cuts you ring the electricity people direct not your landlords supplier to report it.

Power cut instructions

I do. Do it with a quantum meter installed, then come back and tell me that all-knowing advice again, I dare you...

;)

Interestingly when I was looking after my father on the Isle of Wight we had a 2 hour power cut on Christmas Eve afternoon about 3.30, just as it was getting dark.

I rang 105 and was informed that yes they were aware and it was a "wires down" issue.

About a minute after I had hung up the phone rang and it was EDF energy calling to check on my father as he was an "at risk customer".

After speaking to me and establishing that I was looking after dad they said they would keep in touch and let me know how things were progressing.

And they did, calling back about half an hour later and saying that the work was progressing and it power should be back withing the hour, and it was.

Almost as soon as power was restored I got another call to check everything was now OK.

Now I have no idea how dad got made an "at risk customer" I suspect it was the neighbours, as he would have had definite problems finding torches and candles and may well have fallen in the dark, however it seems to me Annie that your other half should be considered "at risk" during power cuts, even if you are coping, having someone check and let you know the situation was very re-assuring.

Quite how you would get put on the at risk list I am not sure but might be working looking into.

The 'at risk' register might be quite widely drawn. I seem to have got recorded on my local one, even though the only possible grounds for doing so would have been age (60+ when I found out) and living alone. They even sent me a 'periodic review' questionnaire to check I still qualified - I told them I hadn't got any younger.

You should be able to register online, through your local equivalent of https://www.northernpowergrid.com/care. Another keyword worth searching for is 'priority', though that seems to have disappeared from the url since I renewed my registration in April this year.

Edit - I note from the form I filled in that as well as a pretty professional list of medical dependencies (including 'refrigerated medicine'), it explicitly lists "Household in fuel poverty" as a reason why additional support is required. People who self-disconnect because of a prepayment meter might be able to initiate some interesting conversations with their landlord on that basis ;-)

It most certainly isn't routed through different distribution channels in London.

I do hope gas and electricity are kept separate during distribution...

It goes against the grain for me to say it, but the commercial electricity suppliers seem to be much more 'enlightened' (pun intended) than local government blue-badge providers when it comes to priority care. Here is your local version:

http://www.ukpowernetworks.co.uk/internet/en/power-cuts/priority-services-during-a-power-cut/

Scroll to the bottom for online registration.

I could get a " Blue badge " very easily if I wanted one through the proper channels and no scamming the system needed on my part , I could also sell the badge for £3000+ coz people will and do pay for them !! Also there's blue Badges being stolen from parked cars around these parts lately so expect in city's the problems even worse .

£3000?? Really?? Bloody hell, I've never heard that before

Ain't joking Chris that was a few years back from what I've heard lately on the " grapevine " nowadays it could possibly be £5000 / £ 6000+ and fairly regularly maybe one / two cases a month get reported in the local rag of people being taken to appear before East Suffolk Magistrate's Court ( Elm St Ipswich I know that place well from my younger days ) for fraudulent use of blue badges some even go to the Crown Court but then there's usualy benefit fraud involved to and the Magistrates " throw it upstairs " coz Crown has Bigger sentencing powers .
If it's happening in rural Suffolk ten to a penny it's happening elsewhere , then you got the " fake " blue badges , can't remember what the program was might of been " Claimed & Shamed " on the BBC with Matt Allwright coverd Blue badges in depth and think it was a local council in greater London but going off memory .
People have asked me to get one for them , I tell em to " go forth and multiply " know I'm no angel by any means and " fractured " a few laws but that is almost as low as a " 45 " !! Might not be involved nowadays but still hear what's happening with and to who ;-)

The 3 to 6 k mentioned by Mark tallies with what we were offered for Mum's after she moved into a nursing home. My brother just cut it in half and handed it in to the council.

Thanks Bernie and Richard. I will look into it :)

[...]

I'm sorry for shouting.

I'm sorry she stopped.

It was a fine outrage. ;-)

The setup is the same as for the railways. Network Rail run the system, the operating companies lease the rolling stock and provide the services. The infrastructure is government backed, the end product is a commercially based provision.

Chris Grayling must have reading your posts. Apparently there's a proposal to put the trains and the track back together again - although without spending any money.

East Coast mainline would be the first service to try the new model from 2020.

At the moment Network Rail, which is state-owned, looks after the track and other infrastructure while train services are operated by private companies. Mr Grayling said Network Rail was a "big blob at the centre" and said it "makes sense" to run trains and the track together.

Only if it is fully nationalised, just tinkering will make things worse. Remember Railtrack anyone?

Exactly. The tracks of the East Coast mainline are used by, from memory and probably not an exhaustive list, trains from:

ScotRail
CrossCountry
Northern
TransPennine Express
Grand Central
East Midlands Trains
Great Northern

- and that's just the passenger operations. If [edit: Virgin] East Coast control the points and signals, will they block their rivals so their own trains go through first? That's what happened before the Railway Grouping Act of 1921.

You forgot Virgin East Coast....

And then the freight operators - DBS, GbRf, Colas, FreightLiner and a few more....

Many people outside the industry just don't realise how many operators there are, and how intertwined many of the routes are. Even in Scotland where there is "only one" operator it is very convenient to forget that there are all those freight operators trundling around - with the likes of Tesco/Stobart running container trains between major centres, each of which saves thirty or forty long-haul truck moves.

It's "I know it better than you, I don't like your answers, I demand to be heard by the project staff" day over at Seti, it seems. I do hope none of those come here.

Also "I haven't learned to read yet" day.

Both grumble and glory (and I'll admit now, nothing really to do with BOINC) - new PC at work.....

Seti is on Twitter?
Ugh.

The generic Berkeley SETI Research Centre is on twitter, and Eric K is on twitter (or so I hear from third parties - I'm not, so I can't confirm personally).

But you can't fit much of an event log into 140 280 characters - no use for debugging. Or conveying scientific information. That BSRC feed is crap.

Great thing is those polls are blocked where I am just now....
(Or is it:- "That poll is blocked where I am just now"?)