London had a two-hour powercut which completely toasted the capital for a day; that affected a quarter of a million people, and everybody screamed blue murder.

The North-Eastern United States had a massive powercut which plunged nearly 30 million into darkness across a quarter of the country and Canada. This sparked political action.

Italy had the largest blackout in history, affecting nearly the entire country (Italian population: 57 million). What are they doing? Apparently, nothing much. It's like an entire nation run by those crazy people who come to parties and break things.

Also, are massive blackouts like this common, or is it just bizarre coincidence that there have been three huge ones (plus some in Denmark and Sweden) in such a short space of time? Or is there a massive cover-up going on of the fact that Al-Qaeda have found a way to disable our power grids at will? I love conspiracy theories.