Jeremy Clarkson is a funny guy. He is one of the presenters on a surprisingly cool car show called Top Gear – check it out, it’s really entertaining.

Anyway, he is an outspoken fellow and his blogs and books are also often entertaining. He recently wrote an article about how dependent modern society is on electricity. He got the idea while he was over here in South Africa and got some first hand experience…

From the article:

“Thirty years ago in South Africa, there was white power. Then there was black power. And now there is no power.

No really. There isn’t. The electricity-generating company over there has just announced that the power stations are not capable of meeting demand and that there will be outages for two, three or six hours a day for at least the next seven years.

So far as I can see, no one is asking why this has happened. Everyone suspects it’s because the power company, since it took over the reins from De Boer Pik Racist, has been operating a policy of only employing black people. So the whites, the ones who know how to run a power station, have left the job of generating electricity to a bunch of guys who don’t know how to.

No one’s actually saying that of course. It’s a political potato so hot that you’re going to get your fingers burned if you even whisper such a thing. And anyway, working out why the country’s run out of juice is nowhere near as important as working out what the bloody hell you can do about it.”

Later on in the article:

And if you want a generator, you’d better have nice tits and loose morals because frankly, that’s the only way you’re going to get one.