Blackout BLUES
“Mr Dear is sometimes seized with a sense of optimism that is quite out of character for a man of his great age. ‘We’ve had the floods,’ he said. ‘We’ve had the virus, and I’m sure I read in the papers that there’s going to be a plague of hornets this summer. Wasn’t an asteroid heading towards us, too? Well, at least nothing else can go wrong.’
A moment later, and with commendable comic timing, all the lights went out.
‘You and your big mouth,’ I
