Established MMXVIII · Circulation: Nine Thousand, Mostly By AccidentLoading Date…Price: One Evening You Will Not Get Back
We do not break stories. We wait, and then confirm what you feared.

Brain Epitaph

Letters may be edited for length, for clarity, and to make the writer look worse.

“All the news that’s already dead — we just write the marker.”

BreakingBank Says It Is Always Here For You, Closes Your Branch Further Down The Same LetterTrain Company Apologises For Delay, Then For The Earlier ApologySupermarket Makes Bag Smaller, Calls It A ChoiceInsurance Renewal Costs More This Year Because Nothing HappenedDoctor Opens Second Waiting Room For People Waiting To Reach The FirstMan Reads One Article About Sleep, Has Not Slept SinceBank Says It Is Always Here For You, Closes Your Branch Further Down The Same LetterTrain Company Apologises For Delay, Then For The Earlier ApologySupermarket Makes Bag Smaller, Calls It A ChoiceInsurance Renewal Costs More This Year Because Nothing HappenedDoctor Opens Second Waiting Room For People Waiting To Reach The FirstMan Reads One Article About Sleep, Has Not Slept Since

Front Page · Energy Desk

Grid Operator Names Masturbation Second-Biggest Source Of Evening Power Use, Asks Nation To Take Turns

The report gives the peak times, prints them next to a graph, and says nothing else.

By a Correspondent Filing From Home, Which Is Now Relevant · Filed Under: Demand

Photo by our art department, who asked to work from home this week.

The national grid has published its yearly report on power use, which for the first time lists masturbation as its own category. In the tables it appears as “unscheduled personal load”. A note at the bottom explains what this means, in one sentence, and then says sorry for the sentence.

“We are not asking anyone to stop. We are asking them to think about Tuesday.”

The category does not measure the act. It measures what the act is watching. Video sent from three data centres into bedrooms now uses more power than anything in the country except heating, and the data centres have to be kept cool the whole time.

Demand peaks at 22:40 on weekdays and at 09:15 on Sundays. The report prints both figures next to a graph and says nothing else.

The method is explained at the back. Engineers took traffic numbers from the ten biggest porn sites and compared them with readings from one street of houses, where the lights are known to dim.

“We are not asking anyone to stop,” a spokesman said. “We are asking them to think about Tuesday.”

A cheaper night price has been introduced, from two until five in the morning. Almost nobody has taken it. The grid has accepted that this kind of demand does not care about price and has stopped calling the offer a solution.

In 2019 a power company ran a campaign asking homes to use less in the evening. The campaign was dropped after seven weeks. The company has since bought a large share in four of the ten sites, and no longer runs campaigns.

Power bought from the grid next door rises sharply after ten at night. The cable was built in 1998 to serve factories. The papers now describe it as being used for something it was not built for.

The minister spoke to the nation on Wednesday and asked people to think of their country. Demand went up during the speech.

A winter review has been ordered. The grid expects the numbers to be worse and has already called this unavoidable.

At press time, evening demand had fallen for the first time in nine years. The grid traced the fall to this newspaper’s readers and wrote to thank us.

It is the first time our journalism has changed anything.

Tomorrow’s Forecast

Damp, With Regret

Wind from the direction of your inbox. Light guilt after four, turning heavy at about the time you sit down.

Outlook: the thing you have been meaning to do will be moved to a list, and then the list will be moved.

Classifieds

  • FOR SALE: Guitar. Bought to become someone else. That person never arrived.
  • WANTED: Someone to sit with my father while he explains the route. Paid work.
  • FREE: A box of documents from a flat I no longer live in. Take the box.
  • LOST: The person who used to answer the phone at my bank. Believed retired, or invented.

Corrections

  • In yesterday’s edition, we reported Monday as the worst day of the week. Our staff has since experienced Tuesday and wishes to issue a formal retraction.
  • An earlier report described a local startup as “disrupting an industry.” The industry was unreachable for comment and continues to operate normally.

Letters to the Editor

“Your paper printed a story about the power grid and what people do in the evening. My wife has read it twice. I wish to state, for the record, that our house is heated by gas.”

— Innocent, Ground Floor

“I have written to my bank four times and received four letters telling me my letter is important to them. I now write to you, as you at least print things.”

— Still Waiting, Somewhere