So there I was, brothers and sisters, a corpulent, hirsute and respectable Johannesburg burgher (a hamburger?) - my taxes paid, my wine cellar cool, my foreskin clean - about to sally forth to Sasolburg to attend a trial.

This trial, as you might have guessed, would be postponed. If they spent as much time in the magistrates' courts getting on with trials as they do postponing them, they might actually get through some work. But this is another story, for another day.

The day was Monday, the time 11h00, the place - the corner of Wicklow Avenue and Westmeath Street in the joyful suburb of Parkview where such leading lights as Justice "the sky is falling" Malala, Anton "the harbinger" Harber, and Stephen "what arms deal?" Laufer live.

At what was I peering? A green electrical "box" - about five feet high, six feet wide and three feet deep - NH152, if you're interested - through which electricity is fed to a number of houses, including mine, on that particular block. I think "sub station" would be too grandiloquent a name for such a compact steel box, don't you?

Why was I staring at this box? Because grey smoke was billowing out of it - it looked like one of my less successful braai fires - and there was a distinct smell of burning plastic.

Being a conscientious and committed member of the citizenry, I therefore repaired inside and phoned what is quaintly known as City Power. The number, as some of you might know, is 011 375 5555.

One presses number (#) 2 - number 1 is for accounts queries - at which point one is transferred to a voice saying that there is a large volume of calls at the moment, that the call might be recorded for "training purposes", and then one listens for what feels like hours to specially-chosen shlocky music until someone in the so-called call centre answers the call.

The business about calls being recorded for training purposes is untrue. We all know that the calls are recorded so that alleged mayor Amos Masondo and various other ANC flunkeys can sit round of an evening, having a tincture or two, and pissing themselves at the poor denizens of the city trying to escape darkness and cold by grovelling to the specially-chosen, illiterate morons at the call centre. They actually go on special courses - held at a secret location in Braamfontein - where they learn to be so obtuse.

However, on Monday morning at 11h00, nobody was answering any calls - well, certainly not mine. After 173 bars of the cocktail music, the line would simply cut, and I would have to start all over again. (I would later be told that there were "some problems" with city power's "call centre lines and systems". No shit, Sherlock.)  

After 20 minutes, I turned to my trusty phone book and found an "emergency management services" number: 011 758 5000. This was answered after a long time, at which point I told the woman who had answered - she said she was from the fire department - about the mini substation that was on fire.

"Yebo," she said. "Please call City Power - it is theirs. It is not our responsibility."

"Yeah, but I can't get through there," I explained for the seventh time. "Listen, pretend this is a soccer stadium and there's, God forbid, a bomb in it. Surely, you have some sort of hot line to City Power? Some line, specially encrypted and installed in terms of the special security plan, by the national commissioner of police, Major-Generalissimo Bheki Cele?"

"No," she said and again asked me to phone City Power.

At this time, I grew a trifle irate and told her that if she didn't give a damn about an electrical box catching fire in Parkview, then I wouldn't either - and we'd both just leave it to burn.

"Fine," she said. This was the wrong response of course - so I asked her for her name and ID number so that I could report her to her superior and she hung up.

Finally, it was now about noon, I got through to City Power and reported the little fire in the little green box. The woman at the call centre asked me if I wanted a reference number for my call.

"I don't need a f**cking reference number," was my sage reply. "You do. You need to get someone out here - or no electricity for this area."

She too hung up, presumably also unimpressed by my turn of phrase.

Three hours later - 14h00 - having gone part of the way to Sasolburg and having heard about the postponement of the trial - I returned to the corner of Wicklow and Westmeath and found a giant fire man and his truck. He really was tall and broad. I think they create firemen with the same sort of farm animals' genes that they used to put together Pierre Spies, the Bulls' eighth man.

"I've opened the casing - you can see the middle part of the thingie there has melted. But I can't open it. It's full of a kind of resin that will explode - it's the resin that smells like that, as it burns. Anyway, I'm waiting for City Power because it's dangerous. And I'll wait as long as I have to and as long as I'm not called away."

I don't know what happened to the fire man but at 17h00 the electricity went off and at 19h00, about seven hours after I had first seen smoke billowing out of the sub-sub-station, I found a sort of scouting-cum-trouble-shooting team from City Power.

You need to be clear about this (as did I then). They - they explained - would not actually be doing anything; they had merely come to see what was going on; it had been reported to them about an hour before. So: eight vehicles - eight: read it and weep - had come there to see what was potting, but they - all wearing nice fleecy kit - needed to move on.

"Don't worry," said one of them - he also explained that they were having countless problems with the "system" at the call centre - "don't worry. The guys will be here soon with a replacement for the burnt-out part or, if they can't find one, a generator - and it'll all be fixed in four hours.

I had bought quite a lot of food for the public holiday and because my wife was overseas and I didn't want to go shopping again soon. My daughter, who'd been away camping, also needed light and hot water for a major ballet rehearsal early on Tuesday morning.

I woke at midnight. Still no electricity. I went out to the corner. There was one small vehicle and three guys, two of them of my vintage - in other words, they were elderly black gents, the ones who've been doing all the work at the city council for the last 30 years - dressed in ragged working clothes in the rain and cold.

They told me they were missing a vital part, for which they had to return to the stores, but they thought the electricity would be restored by 08h00.

The electricity came back on at 10h20 on Tuesday morning. About 40 minutes later a large sub-station, or something, blew in Craighall - and most of you started living through for about five or so hours what I had been through for the previous 24. And I heard on the 18h00 news this evening (Wednesday) that some parts of the city were still out.

If I could get a job there, I'd leave for Kabul. Johannesburg, a world class city, ready for any eventuality - especially ones that we might have during the world cup?

More like an arse class city if you ask me. And here's the interesting part: no one really seems to give a shit any more.

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