An inside
track on
Brit election?
DOES Sky News have an inside track on today's election in Blighty? A headline on their website declares: "Meet the woman about to become the world's youngest prime minister." A picture of Jo Swinson (aged 39), leader of the Liberal Democrats, accompanies it.
But how can they be so confident Jo will make it, presumably heading a coalition in a hung parliament?
Oh, silly me! It's not Jo at all. It's Sanna Martin (aged 34) who will be sworn in as prime minister of Finland on Tuesday. But the likeness is striking.
Maybe Sky are just spooking Boris Johnson, whose lead seemed to be shrinking in the polls over recent days. In a contest with so many imponderables it's just too close to call and a hung parliament seems still very much a possibility.
What an unconscious double for Sky News if Jo the Libdem should in fact end up replacing Bojo the Brexiteer as PM. I would not put money on it – in fact the odds are decidedly against – but then nor would I put money on Bojo getting a working majority, nor achieving Brexit by January as he says he will.
One senses that this Brexit soapie could have a way to run.
Zambia angle
FRONT page headline in the Times of Zambia: "Power cuts to ease".
Front page report: "Load-shedding hours are likely to reduce this week when Government starts importing electricity from South African power company, Eskom."
You don't know whether to laugh or cry – or maybe go out and get drunk.
Yes, Zambia and Zimbabwe have severe electricity supply problems because drought has limited hydro-electric capacity at Kariba.
Those are not quite the same problems as have beset Eskom.
Maybe getting drunk is the only option.
Tugela Basin?
ESKOM'S forerunner, the Electricity Supply Commission, formed in 1923. We got through World War II without load-shedding. (The blackouts along the coast were deliberate, to frustrate enemy submarines and possible attacks from Japanese aircraft carriers). We got through a lot more since, without load-shedding.
Whatever happened to those detailed plans to exploit the hydro-electric potential of the Tugela Basin, which it was calculated could generate power to serve several mega-cities, plus agriculture, and leave enough water flowing into the sea to serve a city the size of Greater London? People spent entire careers working on it, at both provincial and national level.
Are those plans mouldering somewhere in Pretoria? They certainly did exist, including a catchment transfer scheme from the rivers of the Eastern Cape to the Tugela Basin. Imagine the mass employment that would have provided, quite apart from the energy generated.
The model was Roosevelt's Tennessee Valley Authority in the US (which is still going strong).
Do today's energy planners know anything about these plans?
And what's happened about those solar power generating projects in the Northern Cape? Will Cape Town be allowed to make use of them?
So many questions, so few real answers. When will this country get smart? Escape the coal-fired thinking of the Victorian era?
Eskom call
MEANWHILE, a punter reports on interaction with Eskom.
"I phoned Eskom today and asked to speak to Jenna Reiters.
"They said: 'Sorry, no Jenna Reiters here.'
"I said: 'Don't you think it's time you got some?'
"They put the phone down."
Tailpiece
HE LOST the election to a pair of socks. He could taste defeat.
Last word
Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness. - Bertrand Russell
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