Sheep on the overhead lines
A few years ago (just after privatisation) I got a wee job counting computers for a Scottish power supplier. They seemed to have lost their entire IT asset register.
Anyway, I arrived at a small engineering station on South Uist, took a note of the ports on the one PC they had and was about to leave when a crew arrived from repairing overhead cables, laughing as they came in, stinking of burnt mutton.
They had just removed a sheep that had blown off the hill onto the overhead cables.
Apparently it wasn't that unusual in winter.
As the wind had got up again, my flight back was cancelled so I booked into a local hotel. I arrived and was about to get out of the car when the barman ran out and shouted at me to turn the car around. I did as he suggested and found I couldn't open the driver's door. I climbed out the other side into a blast of wind that nearly took me off my feet. He told me he had recognised the hire-company number plate and new the insurance didn't cover doors being ripped off by the wind (something that had happened to another guest the previous week).
I loved camping in the Outer Hebrides last year - but wouldn't want to do it in winter.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
