Aren't we getting soft...

[longers]

Guess 2,3 millennia ago those little mudhuts stuck out on the North Sea Coast somewhere would have been nice and cosy inside. Fire burning, people crammed exhuding bodyheat, animals in the corner giving off their own fumes.

True, I had a three cat night this week, we kept each other warm

I think I was being dim and trying to compare our way of life now without power to that time when they were without. Partly through thinking of massive power cuts lasting days and weeks possibly and the effects of that.

 

[Aperitif]

I remember the 'Ideal' boiler in my Mum and Dad's kitchen - powered by Phurnod (as delivered by a coalman who had to be watched as they had a propensity to slip a bag of dust in if they could, instead of 'proper stuff'. Each bag was counted by my Mum as it entered the coal shed.) I loved raking the ash from the fire and carrying it out to the garden. After a cold day, it was bliss in the extreme to try and grasp the boiler chimney, and the lid on the top was the gateway to hell for all sorts of rubbish...
Stone cold everywhere else!
I used to spend nights in my bedroom listening to radio (Luxembourg...Horace Bachelors 'Infradraw' - anyone else?) and drawing & painting. An Aladdin paraffin heater with a single wick was my friend. At least twice I recall coming home with parents only to hear an "Oh no - the wick has burned out" - or whatever it was...the result was a smoky sooty tint that covered the whole of their bedroom, which in those days was the trendiest of trendy polystyrene ceiling tiles. (Add warmth - cover council house cracks etc... )
Nowadays it's stifling almost everywhere - another reason for not taking the train

 

[col]

I can remember the power cuts too,it wasnt a big deal to us then as kids unless we were missing something on the telly,exciting to us at the time getting the candles out,only two channels then but not sure,i can remember the fourth channel being a big deal too when it did come.

 

[col]

The power cuts were great. Three day school week.

Aye that too,can you remember the jars of malt,we used to get a spoon every morning,loved the stuff,and a cod liver oil capsule too during the winter.

 

[Fnaar]

I've been reading a little about whaling and didn't realise that whale oil was used for street lamps.

whale oil beef hooked!

 

[longers]

whale oil beef hooked!

Four fox ache!

 

[Arch]

The power cuts were great. Three day school week.

Over in Belfast we had the additional disruption of the bread workers often going on strike. It was at this period that my mother discovered her complete incapability to make edible bread. Seriously, even when she brought a bread machine a few years ago, it blew up.

The old mud huts mentioned by User1314 would indeed have been pretty cosy. I've not slept in one, but I've sheltered in a recreated Iron Age wattle and daub roundhouse while on a dig, and with a nice fire going in the middle and enough people and the door shut to keep out the draughts, it was nice. People wore warm clothes, and lived with the elements, not fighting them all the time.

It's hard to remember now, but human kind has lived without electricity for the vast majority of its existence, and survived somehow. And lived well for a lot of the time - think of Roman baths and civil engineering.

 

[dan_bo]

I can remember the power cuts too,it wasnt a big deal to us then as kids unless we were missing something on the telly,exciting to us at the time getting the candles out,only two channels then but not sure,i can remember the fourth channel being a big deal too when it did come.

I've got flashbacks to stuart hall slowly getting dimmer and dimmer as the voltage waned......

 

[Aperitif]

Back in #57, #58 they used to have fun

I read Arch's post and puzzled over a 'recreational Iron Age wattle and daub roundhouse...' until I realised what a dummy I was...