Shorting

Hedge funds, investors and currency speculators are now shorting sterling in volumes not seen, even during the 2008 financial crash.

[…] rotted and cracked, and occasionally the water would seep through to the bare wires and cause shortings and electric fires.

There was a signal station, an old Italian military relic, the equipment in it so dangerous, due to electrical shortings, that the Italian soldier who looked after it used to pray before he used it.

Being “free surface” it made the rolling linger longer at the extremes, and it was this lingering that was causing the shortings and the blackouts to last longer.