The Cliff Wherefrom I Hung

So, what did happen just as I was about to complete "IT".

Well, there I was, approaching the dénouement at last - I had perhaps an hour's more work to do - when it suddenly occurred to me that the screen on my laptop seemed a bit dim... this usually happens when it has switched to battery power and I thought that the power lead must have become unplugged.

But it hadn't! (can you feel the tension building)

I looked down at the power supply and saw - to my horror - that the little green light was no longer shining bright. This was my worst fear - death of the power supply!

Oh dear. Still under Rock's excellent 3 year warranty (thank you Rock for sending for the replacement hinge a while back) but it would take several days at least to get a replacement.

And then it dawned on me that the lights had gone out in Castro. Ah! A fuse has blown.

But, as it turned out, it must have been a very big fuse, because it wasn't just Castro that was affected... the rest of Madach ter seemed strangely dark... there was no sign of artificial lighting anywhere... it was quiet... too quiet.

It seemed that someone was trying to delay the completion... if necessary by darkening a substantial part of Budapest - though why I can't fathom. I struggled on on battery power (well, the laptop struggled on battery power, I struggled on on nervous excitement and tension... would the battery last?) hoping that the aged Lithium battery could hang on long enough that

a) I could finish
b) I could actually save the finished document before the laptop died.

I couldn't... I managed to shut the system down securely only seconds before it would have died, but IT was not yet finished. How long would it take for power to return? There was no way of knowing. I could only wait...

So I waited, the power came back on less than an hour later and I finished about five minutes after that (~14:22)... and then got very, very drunk and eventually (~21:00 and almost a whole bottle of cognac later) had to be helped home by Csaba. Don't really remember that.

As to why it was necessary to delay the completion for ~1 hr I guess I shall never know... maybe someone was just building the tension... by removing the tension (ha ha!).

Electrifying Stuff