h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I used to have the lamp-turning-off business happen to me a few years ago. Where I worked, there was a covered outdoor walkway, lit by flourescent lights at night, on my way home. On five or six occasions, sometimes one light, but more usually two or three lights in succession would go out just as I walked underneath them. Whenever I noticed this happening, the one consistent thing seemed to be that I was wrapped up in a spectacularly foul mood over something or other.

I know that this can be weird. It used to happen regularly on my paper-round, and last year happened whenever Tim (Roasted Amoeba) Ian (Peregrin) and a few others walked back from CU with me. They witnessed it several times - on several occasions - and yet there's no reason for it. It's also happened when I've been strolling along merrily with my girlfriend (Eccles) in the summer. It happened so regularly I always jump when the amount of light at night changes suddenly and I don't know why. People see me staring at lamp-posts - I'm not afraid, just curious to see if it's happened again.

Bizzarely enough, after several years where I didn't notice it happen, just last night a streetlight died exactly as I passed underneath it on my way home.

After my posting yesterday, (referring to the previous night's turn-off incident), I was walking home, and noticed that the offending light must have some kind of problem, as it was the only one in the street that wasn't properly lit, and was very dimly flickering, trying to start up.
Clearly a simple explanation - it was failing anyway, and that's why it had extinguished the previous night. However, not entirely convinced, I kept looking up at it as I approached. Precisely as I walked underneath it, it switched back on, and stayed on.
I think it's going to be one of those weeks.

It's definitely an ill light - after its indecision of the previous 2 evenings, last night it just stayed off.
Fluorescent/ gas discharge lights _do_ seem quite sensitive creatures at times, but I'm still not clear what physical effect my walking by the bottom of a lamppost is supposed to have on a tube 25 feet above my head.

True - it is weird. Is it a coincidence that it happens when you are under, or not? It ~is~ spooky, but you are never sure. A lot of the lights that have gone out on me are flickery, yet they go out when I am under them all the time - and that's just frightening!

I used to think, last year, that it was the influence of Bluebottle that caused the bulbs to go out. However, over the summer, I was walking along the street on my own, and all of a sudden, the lamp-post that I was under at the time decided spontaneously to go out. Scary.

I have no possible explanations at present...

It is very weird - I believe you were reading the bit in "The Long Dark Tea-Time of The Soul" when it first started happening - where it happened to the main character - weren't you?

That's right... the very chapter... distinctly odd...

(sorry about the delay in replying)

That's okay...
I wonder what Madness thought of Lamp-posts.. Afterall, they fell in love with one.