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

This is the openning line of an advert run the UK by British Gas. They supply has, obviously, but, being a Utilities company in 2010, they also supply electricity, insurance and, probably, some sort of online shopping as well. Anyway, this is not an ad I especially object to until it was the first advert that greeted me late the other night as I switched the radio on in the lounge to keep the mice entertained overnight. Why? No surprises here, we are without heating and hot water. We have varius plug-in heaters burning away at a huge rate of watts, keeping the flat just-about-warm, but it is not possible to have any sort of wash without the use of a kettle. Apparently there is a gas leak but the gas people can't find the bugger, so they've turned our gas off so that we don't die. Not of Carbon Monoxide poisoning, anyway. So now it is down to our fiscally cautious landlord to extract his hand from his wallet and fix this problem. Six words you never want to hear: This isn't going to be cheap.

I can live without heat, and have done as my heating broke down the first winter after I bought my house!

Living without hot water isn't so easy, but when I had my shower fitted I made sure it ran on leccy, just to avoid the problem again.

Living with electric heaters is okay, but it is expensive. I want a bath. Or a shower. Or to be able to do the friggin' washing up without boiling the kettle. The pain of it all is that I just borrow one of those energy checker thingies from my library, so I know exactly how much I'm using dammit!

Just discovered I got past the profanity filter there, with a cunning use of an apostraphe. I apologise to all those reading whose minds have been corrupted by my filth.

Yeah, you've done corrupted me beyond redemption. Oh my ...

I agree that the loss of heat is a real nuisance, but the loss of hot water is far more of a bother. A day or two of washing by heating water on the stove can be tolerated, but just isn't the same as a good shower

It's not so bad for me, but Raven has real difficulty getting warm because of her circulation. Oh well, our plumber and builder were there when I left so the end should be in sight...