Let there be light — but how long can it continue?

This week we hit 40 days without state-controlled blackouts.

The number has a religious fervour to it.

Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness, resisting Satan’s temptations.

During national service, 40 days left in the army was the magic milestone every troepie longed for with, surely, as much ardour as the Lord longed for water.

This is the longest we’ve gone with the lights still on in one stretch since sometime in 2022.

Now, almost unnoticed, the lapdogs of complacency are asleep on the couch … when they should be yapping shrilly at our heels.

Inverters uncharged, lights left burning, chargers plugged in while the meters go tick-tick-tick.

Some people, distinctly poorer than they were, are wondering if the gouging hassle of going “off-grid” was worth it.

Eskom, of course, claims reserves are sufficient — and even that there’s been a bit of time for some cheeky maintenance on the hard-pressed coal fleet.

How hard those 60-year-old turbines must have run, flat out, to keep South Africa’s Dark Ages at bay.

The question nobody’s asking is just how serious are these “small” maintenance jobs on the coal fleet? I’d bet the house that this isn’t just a spot of grease and a bit of bolt-tightening.

Then again, I’m not an actual engineer, only the son of an engineer who spent many hours of his working life in some of those same coal-fired stations.

Meanwhile, that smell in the air isn’t just furiously combusting coal, but probably the stench of burning diesel as the open-cycle gas turbines roar on and on.

Eskom says the lights still burning after 40 days has absolutely nothing — nothing! — to do with the ass-whipping, sorry, elections lurching down the road towards us.

Ah, look, a flying pig. So many around at this time of year … migrating north for winter.