Cranky Lizard has many friends in the reptile world and in the human world.
This is a direct result of the endearing nature of the Lizard and the Lizard's ability to listen to all who speak, take note of their concerns and, if necessary, give them a proper flash hug to help them on their way through this difficult world.
One of Cranky's friends, a splendid little Gecko, not related to Gordon, provided Cranky with a report of some proceedings last week conducted by some really important people. Or so they thought anyway!
Geraldine Gecko was resting quietly on top of the pelmet in a luxurious boardroom in one of our southern Capitals, when her peace was disturbed by the arrival of people plonking water bottles and glasses on the fat boardroom table.
She heard one of them say, “The turkeys will be here in 10 minutes”. She was right. Within ten minutes, the boardroom filled with people who thought they were really important.
First in were blokes, slightly red-faced and overweight but with genuinely open faces, from the union movement. They were there to ensure that their members got a fair bloody go! They sat on the chairs near the top of the table.
Next were fussy bureaucrats, three of them, walking and looking at their skinny, shiny, tax payer funded, slimline computers. Two men and a woman. One of the men was obviously a Kiwi, who bumped his shin walking into chairs whilst looking at his device, and said “Shut!” They sat at the other end of the table.
Two Cabinet Ministers came next, surrounded by four ‘minders’ whose average age was about 19 years. They puffed their little chests or breasts, whichever, and flonked themselves into chairs on either side of the chairs, at the middle of the table, which were taken by the Cabinet Ministers, who were both carrying ring binders. One ring binder had the words ‘Climate Change’ in big letters, glued to the front cover. The other ring binder had the words ‘Energy’ in big letters, glued to the front cover.
There were five other people sprinkled amongst the chairs alongside the boardroom table. Three were young virile men in suits with shirts without ties. Two were women, young, good-looking women, one of whom had shiny black hair cut into very attractive short spikes.
“Who are they?”, one of the union blokes whispered to the other.
“Dunno, probably ABC”, he replied.
The meeting was called to order and commenced. No-one knew who the extra five people were except the Cabinet Ministers, who smiled and nodded at them like old friends.
It was explained that the purpose of the meeting was to find a way to balance the need for base-load power for the Nation, whilst protecting the environment from the ravages of burning coal, oil, old rags, paper and discarded clothes.
One of the Minister's minders suggested that the burning of old rags, paper and discarded clothes had not actually happened yet, but was on the cards!
“Bloody Hell!”, whispered one of the virile young men.
There was a period of silence as everyone tried to deal with the shocking eventuality of burning old clothes, etc.
One of the Ministers, short and dumpy with a serious haircut, pointed out in a confident tone that a new Government has new ideas and nothing was going ‘to stand in our way’. This made everyone at the meeting feel better, which was good.
The same Minister continued speaking confidently, pointing out that one of the ‘pernickety’ problems they were facing, was that peak power demand occurred just at the exact time that the sun stopped shining on the solar panels. At least in the wintertime, anyway!
One of the bureaucrats suggested that maybe it could be arranged that, as the sun went down, huge banks of focused spotlights could be powered up to shine on all the solar panels, thus replacing the sunlight with electric light. He went on to suggest that the solar panels would not know the difference and would keep producing electricity.
The union bloke said that their members would need extra pay, accommodation and probably vehicles supplied by the Government.
The suggestion sunk into oblivion when it was pointed out that the banks of spotlights would have to be powered by diesel generators, the use of which would create toxins in the atmosphere.
“Shut”, said the bureaucrat.
The woman with the attractive black, spiky hair suggested that her company had base-rotating wind machines available 24/7 and that these machines could come on-line whenever needed. She then had to explain that ‘base-rotating’ meant that the wind machines could be spun about to face into the wind at any time.
Everyone thought that was a bloody good idea and were all for it, as long as the wind kept blowing enough to spin the windmills.
There was another silence as everyone thought about that for a moment or two!
One of the virile young men in a suit and shirt, without a tie, lifted his eyebrows at the black-haired woman and smiled a slow smile.
The other union bloke said that their members would need more extra pay, proper accommodation, vehicles supplied by the Government and OH&S safety clothes with bright reflecting panels.
One of the young puff-breasted minders squeaked that no-one had spoken about diversity, yet!
“Quite appropriate”, said the other Cabinet Minister in an intense and profound voice.
The meeting ambled along for quite awhile. Ministers riffled through their ring binders, the minder's fingers fled wildly over the keyboards of their thin devices, and the union blokes got into a sort of staring match with the virile young men in suits and shirts without ties.
People spoke.
Ideas floated.
Smiles became surreptitious.
Eventually, a conclusion became apparent!
It was obvious, said one of the Cabinet Ministers, after a further riffle through the ring binder marked ‘Climate Change’, that one of the fundamental problems with generating base-load power from mirrors and windmills was that the weather let them all down more often than not.
The wind would not blow consistently. The sun would not shine consistently.
And, of course, there was always the night when the sun did not shine, hence no power from the mirrors at night.
“For God's Sake, how are we supposed to fix ‘Climate Change’ when the bloody weather keeps letting us down?”, one of the union blokes questioned in frustration.
“Buggered if I know”, intoned one of the bureaucrats.
And then……….
One of those events that could be called a ‘Deus ex Machina’ occurred.
The sun, clearly bothered by all the personal abuse, shone a ray of sunlight onto the screen of one of the devices, which in turn passed on the reflection to the slanted windows of the boardroom and those windows, in turn, burnt the reflection into the faces of most of the participants, thereby closing the meeting and causing someone to say……
“Shut”.
Cranky Lizard points out that Geraldine passed on this information in confidence, but Cranky Lizard felt that it was too important not to share it with you.
Enjoy your days.
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