(Flickr photosource – thanks Robin Kearney)

Organise a Power Cut Party. Ask your guests to bring candles, lanterns, instruments, board games, and songs. Create an emergency ration kit, light a fire (if you can), and then see – albeit dimly – what happens.

You could play ‘hunt the fuse box’. But, whatever you do, the idea is to create a different sort of convivial atmosphere and space where different types of connections can be made – at the same time as saving energy and highlighting its preciousness as a resource.

Here’s what Vincent Reid wrote in the Guardian about making an emergency kit:
What’s in your emergency kit? The bare necessities of life are available in most houses. We are all accustomed to having heat, water and electricity on demand. Without these things, we would be quite helpless. But what if something went wrong, such as a power cut or a broken pipe? It is worth discussing what you need and why. It may come as a shock that we are dependent on these amenities. After discarding the suggestions of favourite DVDs, our emergency kit ended up as a box of matches, candles, a blanket, two tins of beans, a pocket knife (with tin opener attachment), some spoons and a big chocolate bar. A few days later, we had to use it for the first time when the power went off. It was a remarkable success.

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