It was obviously a ploy to make my life more miserable. CUC, our power company on Grand Cayman lost power for a large proportion of the day last Friday. Where I am situated the power went dark from around 5:30am and didn’t come back until 3:30pm. And to make sure I suffered they (CUC) made sure it happened on one of the hottest days of the year – almost 92 degrees in the shade.

I sweated. I sweated bullets. A friend of mine (was!) called me around 11:30am to ask whether my power was back on? I told him “No!” He then said he had gone to get a generator and he then put it into the back of his truck. As he drove into the yard of his business in downtown George Town the power instantly came back on.

So you think I was joking when I said it was a ploy?

I asked him to bring it down to me and see if my power came back on when he drove into my yard. He refused. I think he was part of the ploy, especially as he is an electrician!

So I sweated more.

My wife found out that her sister had been reconnected so she immediately left to go there for a visit to cool down.

She found the house locked and bolted. In desperation she went to a hairdressing salon with electricity happily working that cost her $26 for a cut and blow dry. She happily paid the price for the air conditioning in the room alone. As she was about to leave in walked her sister!

I well remember those dark days and especially nights after Hurricane Ivan that turned into weeks until we obtained a generator. But I don’t remember it being so hot as Friday with hardly a breathe of even a breeze.

To back up my theory of a ploy soon after I got back electricity at my home the clouds darkened and a breeze sprung up that eventually turned into a wind. By the evening it started to rain and soon after 10pm a full blown electrical storm with torrential rain commenced.

We didn’t need electricity to keep us cool now. Nature’s own electrical storm was doing that. At no cost, too.

I wonder if the Government was part of this ploy. You see, humans without electricity are powerless (pun intended). We have to struggle and normal life isn’t normal anymore. Governments try various means to keep us underfoot and closing down our electricity supply is the perfect way to keep us under control. And being in the media business we are not the Government’s flavour of the month or year. When there is an upcoming election we are their best friends. Even that 5 days a week print one.

Look here. we are iNews Cayman. We are the ieye media house. We are the good guys. We don’t continually blast our government – well not continually. But without electricity we don’t function at all. You can’t take Government’s advertising away from us – we don’t get any. So taking our power from us is your answer? Yes I know.  Without power there is no power of the press.

And yet there are 1.5 billion people living on this planet without electrical power

In Africa 85% of the population don’t have electricity.

60% of energy is consumed by just 20% of the world’s population.

Hmm. That cools one down quickly doesn’t it?

For us living where we do here in the Cayman Islands with electricity 99% of the time we are comfortable.

Without electricity, for us, it is a living hell.

Maybe it wasn’t a ploy after all? A plot? Nah. Equipment failure? Whatever it was doesn’t matter. We have power once again.

No electricity – plenty of sweat. With electricity – wait for Bill. And when you examine that Bill you start to sweat again. Where am I going to find the money to pay Bill? Perhaps I could ask my friend the accountant, Ben? Unless he’s too busy in the garden trying to kill Little Weed.

You see Bill and Ben were flowerpot men? Made from flower pots. They never needed electricity. They carried on happily without it. There was even Dan the potato man. One of them was always found guilty of doing something to Weed. Was it Bill or was Ben?

You’re all too young and not from Britain to understand any of this. So don’t get into a sweat trying to figure it out.

Pray we don’t lose electrical power again for a very long time.

You know the reason for the power outage could have been Ben’s fault. When he was trying to chop up Weed he could have instead chopped up the power wire.

But then it could have been Bill?

What do you think?