In the cold light of dawn

I was not expecting to hear, earlier today, that the country was in danger of not having enough electricity to go round but it sure did take me back to the bad old days...

Love how Transpower is like everyone's broke mum aka "put a jumper on!"— Madam Snazzy (@moatatamaira.bsky.social) May 9, 2024 at 3:44 pm

Remembrance of winters past

Being told to put a (probably handknitted) jumper on and/or to shut the door to the one room in the house that had a heating source is fully 80% of my childhood memories of winter (childhood memories of summer were mostly "go outside" and ecstatic mania in response to the sound of a Mr Whippy van, but I digress). And our heating sources were not the clean efficiency that is the modern day heat-pump. Oh no. At the risk of sounding like one of those content creators whose sole output is videos around the theme of "lemme tell you about being Gen-X and how it carved my soul from my body"¹ you do not even want to know about the kinds of heating we had growing up, but okay, here they are:

• A kerosene heater. Just casually burning your old highly flammable liquid fuel in the same living room as children wearing polyester nighties. As you do.
• The mighty bar heater. Some of them were so big you could (and did) sit on them. Nothing but a chrome grill between you and nasty burns. Sometimes when mum wasn't looking you'd find a bit of fluff or paper or something to poke through the metal and burn, for fun, because kids are like that.
• The absolute monstrosity that was a gas heater. A big metal box on stupidly small castors with a 9kg gas bottle in the back and some ceramic plates on the front. It smelled terrible and was only supposed to be used in a "ventilated" space but who were we kidding?

Growing up we were, how do you say, "poor". So this sudden need for reducing power usage has me mentally cracking my knuckles because the terrible power and beauty of once having been poor is that YOU NEVER FORGET (my superhero pose involves me looking staunch while holding a hot-water bottle in one hand and swinging a homemade draught excluder in the other). BRING IT.

We're NOT going to rock down to Electric Avenue, thanks very much

That said, all the usual ways of trying to stay warm in houses that weren't actually designed for that are fine, but perhaps you're looking for something more whimsical and less "practical but depressing". Then, I too am your gal for that. Hear are my suggestions of non-electrical ways to stay warm on a cold, frosty morning.

Potential heat sources, in no particular order

Thinking about Matthew McFadyen's hand flex in Pride and Prejudice.

That growling noise Roy Kent makes sometimes.

That growling noise Geralt of Rivia makes sometimes.

Look, just insert your grumpy growling person of choice here - no judgement.

I'd quite like leg-warmers to make a comeback...

Doesn't seem like we need all this RMA-related paperwork now so should we just burn that?

This just in, Shane Jones wants to know why we'd bother burning the RMA when we can just mine a shite-tonne of coal instead? Ah, for several very good reasons that mostly involve the planet we live on continuing to be habitable...

What's that, Mr Jones? Have any of us considered staying warm by watching porn in a hotel and charging it our work account²? Honestly, no. Is it because we're woke? No, I think it's because we're not as dumb as a box of kumara, matua Shane.

Don't know about you but every single one of David Seymour's thoughts, words, and deeds fills me with a volcanic fury. Could be a way to harness that but there's an argument to be made for the cure being worse than the disease, to be fair.

There are a million ways to stay snuggly. May you find the best one for you and yours on Friday morning.

1. I am personally very side-eye about these accounts that Facebook is determined to show me, but that's also an extremely Gen-X attitude to have, so I've kind of fallen into my own paradox or something there.
2. Truly astonished that this man continues to have a role in public life. Not kink-shaming, just SO DUMB.