Electric Dreams

"If there was no electricity, we'd have to watch the telly by candlelight".

Yes, it took me a couple of moments to figure out the BHG's 'updated facebook status of the day' as well. We'd been discussing what we'd do for Earth Hour in a couple of Saturday's time. By then we'll be staying with rello's so I thought I'd liaise with SIL 2 (sister-in-law 2, married to BtT's second oldest brother) and arrange a party. There was collective excitement for a moment there, as we planned a bamboo-undie wearing, candlelit family fondue dinner, with entertainment provided by any guest who could entertain without the need for electricity (ie, gong playing, stand-up comedy...) and me wearing my new Earth Hour shirt (that was NOT bloody well made in a sweatshop or a waste of money thanks BtT!!!) Oh, what electricity-free fun we'd have!!!

Then, as the 'consultation process' (as is oft done amongst families when organising a gathering) kicked in. Crisis. It was discovered that the West Coast Eagles (AFL) are playing during Earth Hour. Right then. We rapidly re-organised the function into 'no electricity except the telly'. BHG profered that she and her cousins might need to use the computer 'if there's an emergency', so we downgraded to 'Reduced Consumption Hour'. Or, as the BHG so aptly put it, "why don't we just turn the lights off?" Fine then. Turn the bloody lights off and go watch telly or play on the computer. I'll just go and save the friggin' planet myself shall I?

Which got me to thinking about how tragic we must be if it's a problem living electricity-free for a WHOLE HOUR.

BHG seriously wanted to know if we should charge all the electronic things in preparation for 60 minutes of electricity-free living:

What if the mobile phone goes flat?

What if I want to use the DSi?

Dad won't be able to shave at 9pm like he normally does!

WHAT ON EARTH WILL WE EAT????

The funny thing about this issue is that we're so hung up on saving bloody whales and using green bags at the supermarket that some practices have managed to permeate our society faster than the swine flu. Gosh, the glares at Woolies if you forget your own bags! Good grief yes, we will ONLY buy a duck or goose-cruelty free doona! We flush our washing machine water onto the lawn, use organic bath products and free-range eggs, but we can't turn off the electricity. Houston, we have a problem.

I kind of remember a few blackouts in Bush Bogantown when I was little. We'd have a set of candles on standby. We'd sit around playing Scrabble as a family and then go to bed. Never seemed to be a big drama. But then, we didn't have that many electronic devices either. We only just got a phone, the type that you had to actually dial, when I was about 13. It didn't matter if you 'couldn't cook dinner' because you'd just have cereal or a sandwich or something. I personally, as a kid, had the grand sum of ZERO chargers.

These days, kids have more chargers than brains. There's massive powerboards all over the house. We actually have to put little labels on the chargers at our house otherwise we forget which one's which! At BHG's recent 14th birthday party I was greeted with eye rolls when I suggested they all watch the movie 'Grease' or play 'Truth or Dare'. Ah, no. The girls were busy texting each other from across the room. At one point we went to the rumpus room, worried, because it was so damn quiet. No drama though. They were all just on their laptops of course, 'facebooking'. The powerboard had all twelve holes filled with various leads. Should I start charging adolescent guests an electricity levy?

BtT and I travelled to Africa a couple of years back.

You know... groovy animals, great outdoors, blah, blah. Being wanna-be-greenies we booked the 'Safari Section' of the holiday at an 'eco' establishment. Looked good on the web. Out amongst the wilderness, eco ethics and whatever. Practically offsets all that nasty carbon-y plane flight muck. Oooo, how noice!!! We'd all sit around the fire at dinner, discussing our safari-ing with world travellers like ourselves. Lock it in Eddie!

When we arrived at camp Save-the-Planet we asked what 'eco' measures were in place. A short list really: No electricity.

Oh, how quaint! we thought. Little lanterns and billy tea.

And...

No charging the mobile phone (went dead that night).

No charging the digital camera. Ooops. Ration the wild animal photography.

Five minutes of hot water a day from something called a 'donkey' (don't ask)

No air-conditioning. It's AFRICA in summer. You'd start to smell too.

Oh, and close all the windows otherwise monkeys come in and steal your stuff, so no breeze.

Yeah, the pool photo on the net is only for display every now and then. A pump would require electricity. You can have a dip next Tuesday when we clean it out.

To be fair, it was very 'wilderness-y'. There were giraffes, lions, elephants, zebras and the like. All over the bloody place actually. So much so that you weren't allowed out of the Livingstone-like hut after dark. And there's not much to do when you run out of kero in your little lamp at 7:15pm, the windows are shut and there's no telly. Every now and then BtT would open the front door of the hut and stand guard whilst I waved a towel-full of fresh air into the hut. Then we'd wet the towel with manky African sink water and lie on the bed with it, rationing out the sleeping pills and feeling relieved that we weren't born in a Third World Country.

In the end we booked into a 'lush luxury resort' down the road. Less wild animals, but heck, it had AIRCONDITIONING. And we could charge the phone, the electric razor, the iPod, the portable DVD player... and have a BATH.

So, what to do about Earth Hour then? Is my goal of showing Gen Y how to live simply just an Electric Dream? We shall see. But to be on the safe side, I might hide all the powerboards.

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Electric Dreams, Philip Oakey and Giorgio Moroder, 1984