Monday, March 05, 2007

Why my flickering lights mean the Olymics might not be *entirely* malign

I was overjoyed when I heard that London would be hosting the 2012 Olympic Games. I remember that I was working from home that day and that I deliberately walked to the shops for lunch a little earlier than normal so that I could be home in time for the announcement. Given that I have absolutely no interest in sport and will probably not watch any of the coverage when it finally happens, this is probably somewhat inconsistent.  Nevertheless, I did watch the broadcast and I was mildly excited when I heard we had won.

Since the announcement, however, I have been watching the costs grow with mounting horror. The guys at "Burning Our Money" have been doing a sterling job of keeping track of the ballooning costs and idiocies that are going on.

However, they've missed a piece of goodness: currently, a large amount of East London's power is delivered via overhead lines that travel through Stratford. These will be buried as part of the Olympic development work.

It is currently very windy in East London and my lights are flickering. I do not like it when my lights flicker. If they bury the lines, perhaps my lights will flicker less.

Students of logic will observe that this does not imply that the Olympics are a good thing.  But they will make my lights flicker a little less....

3 comments:

kyb said...

How much would you pay in a free market to be rid of the flickering?

Richard Brown said...

:-)

Good question. I have a friend whose parents live in Nigeria. They have a backup generator due to the low quality of the power-grid. I guess that would be the alternative. No idea how much they cost though (or where I'd put it!)

Richard Brown said...

Actually.... there's another guy (if you believe what you read on the web) who powers some of his house buy leaving his cold water tap turned on permanently and driving a small turbine with it....

I don't approve of such behaviour but it's certainly innovative