History of the National Grid, no idea about i-player+freeview channels+foreign IP/proxies. I wonder if they will nail the story I've never seen confirmed anywhere . In early days each power station supplied a local area with the the chance to link across to a neighbouring grid in times of heavy useage. No one dared hook up 3 or more grids due to concerns over current hogging/ burnouts or something. Anyway middle of the night sometime a lowly technician decided, for a wheeze, to link loads of these separate grids together and nothing untoward happened.