The amazing electricity company
Sometimes tradesmen come into the café. We seldom entrust ourselves to them. For example one charming man from a nation wide fire extinguisher company came, introduced himself and asked if we minded if he inspected our fire extinguishers so he could sell us better ones. We told him that we did mind and advised him to sling his hook. There have been several of these unsolicited encounters, and I have a principle of never signing up for something without at least a minimum of research. Thus it was that when two charming people came in to tell us of a wonderful system whereby we could render patriotic service to France, save ourselves some money and automate our heating system (two electric radiators), our response was somewhat noncommittal. In short, we did not commit ourselves. We did, however, report to the committee of the café what the charming people had said. "Run away", was the initial response. I often feel that our initial, visceral response can be ill-founded and ill...