Blackout

During World War II the United Kingdom enforced a blackout of all lights that might be used by enemy aircraft to target urban areas during the Blitz.

This included shutters or simliar on all windows and shielding street lights so they did not shine up (and did not shine anywhere else very strongly). Also the headlights of cars were masked so that they threw only a very small beam. Not unsurprisingly the number of accidents at night went up quite noticeably during this Blackout.

Enforcing the Blackout was part of the responsibility of the Air Raid Patrol (ARP) wardens. They could be obsessive and were sometimes the target of fun (as in the comedy "Dad's Army").

A series of rules designed to prevent televised sports events from being broadcast to certain areas.

The logic behind the blackout is that it protects the revenue stream of a sports franchise or team within its market area.

Blackout rules vary from sport to sport, but generally work in one of two ways:

• The Sell Out Rule -- common with NFL games. Applies to a 75-mile radius around the home team's stadium. If a home game in that facility is not sold out at least 72 hours prior to kick-off, the game will not be broadcast on television inside that radius. The idea is to protect the team financially by providing an incentive for fans to attend the game in person.
• The Market Protection Rule -- this rule is usually used in Major League Baseball. Each MLB team controls a market area made up of the region surrounding their home location. This allows the team to restrict out-of-market broadcasts of their games into their area.
  Example: I live in Florida, a market "owned" by the Florida Marlins and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. However, I'm a fan of the New York Yankees and I have a satellite dish to see Yankees' games. When the Yankees play either Florida team, I only see the broadcast of the game if the regional sports channel in Florida carries the game. If the game is broadcast by an out-of-market network (such as Madison Square Garden Network), and the regional network doesn't carry the game, the MSG feed is blacked out in my area. Which means I'm screwed.

People like me who have satellite think blackout rules are stupid. We already pay a premium to get out-of-market sports, so we ought to be exempt from such idiotic efforts at protectionism.

Blackout
Connie Willis
Spectra, 2010

Blackout is a work of historical science fiction by Connie Willis, a continuation of her earlier time-travelling-historian books that started with Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog. It can be read and enjoyed even if you have not read these earlier books.

Blackout takes place (mostly) in England during WWII; it starts out however, in 2060, where time-travel technology allows historians to go back and study history as it happens. At the moment, quite a few historians are setting out for the years of 1940-1944, to study the events around WWII. Three of these, Michael Davies, Poly Churchill, and Merope Ward, are studying events surrounding the Blitz -- Michael is studying the Battle of Dunkirk, Polly the reaction of Londoners to the Blitz, and Merope the lives of children evacuated out of London. And that's what the story is about.

Okay, there's a bit more to it than that -- a lot more -- but that's actually a lot of the story; what it was like in England during the war. This is by no means boring, and the background is exhaustively researched and the story well written. Of course, this is the story of historians from the future, and they have all kinds of difficulties with temporal schedules and learning how to live like 1940s contemporaries without acting so odd that they get reported as possible German spies. This being a Connie Willis story, any number of things go wrong, and this being a war, some of these things are fairly dangerous.

Eventually it becomes clear to the protagonists that some of the things going wrong can't be explained simply by the bloody-mindedness of time-travel technology and the chaos of a country under siege. All of the theories say that it is completely impossible for a time traveller to change history, but as the chaos mounts and they lose contact with the future they start to suspect that the theories might be wrong.

This is a very good book, and well-worth reading despite the material being rather familiar to Willis fans. WWII doesn't get boring, and if the Blitz is well-trodden territory, that's only because it deserves to be. That said, the setting, style, characters, and tone of this book are just what we've come to expect from Willis; this book fits right into the mood of her earlier books (although it's not as dark as Doomsday book)

Unfortunately, this is actually a 1000 page novel split into two parts; I strongly suggest that you buy both Blackout and the sequel All Clear together, as Blackout doesn't come to any sort of ending point... It just stops. And it's plenty good enough that you won't want to stop.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes humorous and well-researched historical fiction, although I recommend buying the second book, All Clear at the same time; you will not want to take a break between the two. If you are uncertain whether this book is for you, I would recommend starting with the less-massive To Say Nothing of the Dog, or even (hey, why not) the first book in the 'series', Doomsday Book.

ISBN: 978-0-34551983-2

 

On nights they went drinking

Bill and my dad 

hit most of the bars in midtown Memphis

and when they came home 

around three in the morning 

drunk as something that fell in the river

my mother and I 

would put them to bed 

certain they’d never wake up

before noon.

But every morning I’d smell bacon frying;

I’d see Bill in the kitchen,

the waffle iron on.

One or two, he would ask

and I’d tell him, two.

He’d give me a wink.

Atta girl, he would say.

If my dad ever had a best friend, 

it was Bill. 

I thought of him as my uncle back then,

and if he had a fault, 

it was how much he drank,

and what he became each time that he did.

One night I tried on a dress that I made.

It was black with silver pearl buttons in back,

and I am no seamstress

but I was proud.

I stood at the mirror turning this way and that.

The doorbell rang,

it was Bill, he was drunk.

Bill was mean when he drank.

He laughed in that way only drunks can laugh.

My mom and my dad tried to put him to bed,

but he stared at me.

He lifted his head.

You look like a goddamn whore, he said.

I woke up the next morning and smelled bacon frying.

Bill was in the kitchen.

The waffle iron was on.

Hey sleepyhead. One, or two.

It’s easy to forget what falls in the river.

Easier, I think, each time that you do.

Two, I replied, and he gave me a wink;

hard to forget what men do when they’re drinking.

Atta girl, he said, as if we were dreaming.