An electric shock – a real ‘buzz’, eh? It’s a funny experience an electric shock – and as they say it’s not the voltage that kills it’s the amps. Our domestic supply runs at 240 volts, enough to kill and make flesh smoulder, that’s a particular smell isn’t it-  burning flesh, not that I’ve smelt it much, but it has a tinged barbecue meat vibe to it. Just thinking about my last electric shock, it came from a U.P.S.- an uninterruptible power supply. This thing is about as heavy as a cow and we lug it out on outside broadcasts for the wireless station I work for. This block of portable electricity will run for about twenty minutes – while you try to work out what’s happened to the real power. It charges up while being plugged into the wall and acts as a ‘pass through’ for all your other equipment- if the power fails it kicks in . What they didn’t explain in the non existent training is that it also it works back wards…….. So there I am at a site and I’m about to plug its INLET to the wall, I wrap my hands around the end of the plug and ZAPPO! It’s like having a dry vomit, a convulsion that makes my whole body rigid. Time also seems to become frozen while the awake part of my brain seeks to release my hand, but my hand is stuck in a vice grip of my own making around the bloody plug.  But I do let go, and start to breathe again. Luckily it’s only 50 Volts not 240- not sure about the amps.

Good old Mr Voltaire , back there in the dusty years of science working out all that stuff about joules and energy and Mr Watts for his clever calculations Watts = Voltage X Amperage. High school science classes, Mr Fielding doing his best to contain a rag-tag bunch of 13 year olds who’d rather be outside in the sun, we can see it through the shuttered windows. The high voltage sun…….AC/DC starts to play in the back of my mind — high Voltage rock ‘n Roll……..