The reliance on all things electrical is a given, and so our reliance on electric utility companies has become necessity. What’s more, they know this. Result: they exhibit the basest characteristics of psychopathological megalomania, with fantasies of wealth, power and greed. Next they’ll be charging us for the air we breathe.

I imagine plugging myself in to the mains, in homage to Frankenstein’s monster, and Buzz-zapping Eskom’s executives’ with 10 000 volts of their own electricity! (Although I’m not sure, by the looks of things, they have the intellectual capacity to understand the irony.) Inevitably, however, those money-grabbing fat cats would have the last laugh, when my bill came in at the end of the month and I was charged 24 per cent extra for the privilege!

And that’s only this year... as we know, it gets worse.

If my estimations are correct, in the next 3 years our bills will more than double, creating a serious shortage of cash for everyday stuff: you know, like food, petrol and kitten catapults.

We as society should always learn from the lessons of Science Fiction:
* Firstly, it is never good in any circumstance to wear Lycra.
* Secondly, if we don’t look after our planet we will all be completely screwed.

With this in mind let’s leave the grid and expand our horizons to new forms of energy. Now unless you want 50 kittens working in shifts on a treadmill (I just don’t like cats) then you need to open up your (shaded) eyes to the wonders of solar energy.

The world gains more energy in one hour through sunlight than we use in an entire year. This is why it seems that solar power is the only viable option, and you must have noticed that here in South Africa we’ve got a fair bit of it lying around. Also, with ever-advancing technology, solar energy will undoubtedly become cheaper and easier to access than ever before.

I can’t be the only sentient being on the planet that sees this price hike as an opportunity to develop the shortcomings in our energy usage.

Now stop me if I’m getting overly preachy. I’m far from perfect (and who would want to be?) but this seems as good a time as any to invest in solar, help the planet and give two fingers to the government at the same time!