I recently suffered from unexpected electrical activity in my house. I have a studio with quite a specialist computer and a lot of various equipment. I live in town now but used to be in the Campo. I’ve suffered in the past from power surges and now have myself as well protected as I can. I run everything through surge protectors -  ones with battery back up and assumed these would protect me; that’s what the label said anyway.

When I was in the Campo I had a variety of problems with the electricity. The house wasn’t earthed properly, there was a pylon very near to my studio and I was forever recording hums and buzzes that just shouldn’t be there. The wattage was generally really low and things like flushing the toilet would often crash the computer!

So I was in my studio, wedged between the headphones when all of a sudden there was excruciating buzzing in my ears, the lights started flashing and all sorts of appliances started making funny noises. My computer stayed running and I thought the surge protector was doing what it was designed for.

Then came a hammering on my front door “Hurry, hurry, we’ve got a fire out here and your car’s right in front of it!”, one of my neighbours was calling. It was like Sophie’s Choice: do I move the car or get my computer powered down as quickly as possible? I opted for shutting down my ordinador - it had half my life in it.

Finally with everything switched off I made my way outside to shift my motor. I was greeted with an electrical fire, popping and banging lighting up the street in a fabulous display similar to fireworks. Electricity was arching out across the road embedding bits of burned metal in my side door, window and windscreen. I had to take a deep breath, rush out, not wet myself and dive beneath it, open the door that was in the firing line and take my car to safety.

Eventually the police came, fully armed with fire extinguishers. They managed to stop the fire but not before coating the street with the content of the extinguishers – a blue fog filling the road and turning every house blue! It was funny seeing my street of white houses blue - I suppose I’ve painted the town red enough times, I shouldn’t be surprised.

I stuck the telly on and realized my skybox was now just a box full of redundant non responsive components. Great.

What is one supposed to do? I’ve worked, saved, bought the best I can afford, run it all through top of the range surge protectors – I’ve got three of them – and still I’m powerless. I had to buy a new skybox, a new monitor, video card and no doubt I’ll have to replace the windscreen when the ITV’s due! I’m a man of humble means that cannot afford the luxuries of home insurance; I rent anyway so it’s not the sort of thing I think about.