Sheffield's Heart of Darkness

Sheffield revealed its dark side today.

First up was the moment when, whilst driving home, everything went dark. For an instant I felt that sinking feeling that you get when the car breakdown cover is about to come in handy, but then I realised that of course the car was fine, it was the street that had suddenley been plunged into total gloom. A few moments later, everything was back to normal.

Then an hour later, everything went black at home. By the time I had stumbled about and found a torch, the power came back on. So apart from a symphony of house alarms that played on for half an hour or so, it wasn’t too bad.

Other people were less fortunate, the lights were certainly out at the University of Sheffield. I arrived at my evening class to find a very dark Arts Tower – just a faint glow from the emergency lights. I’m glad I wasn’t in there when the lights went off -stumbling down endless flights of stairs by the light of the emergency exit signs probably wouldn’t be much fun.

So what caused it? No one seems to know. Are we practising for the winter power cuts predicted by Dr Ian Fells? Or has the University simply failed to buy enough tokens for the electric meter?