Please settle an argument between 9 yo and 10 yo re electricity

[teethgrinder]

Well, of course they are.  What else would one expect when you have two world-class pedants arguing, with one staunchly defending what they "read in my book" and the other quoting verbatim from QI?  And, of course, neither actually listening to what the other is saying....

They'll fit right in around here in a few years time, won't they 

I think that kids are a great insight to how we all think. They express their thoughts very openly. I think that as we grow older, we learn to suppress and contain those thoughts while underneath everyhting we say, those thoughts are often at the very source of what we say and think.

I often think that we don't give kids enough credit, because they are kids, while at the same time we give adults too much credit, because they are adults.
I often see kids in the same light as I see adults. I often see adults in the same light as we see kids.

[Tim Hall]

So it does have some resale value to someone -

fibre optic is worth sod all.

The idiots nick it because they think it is comms cable containing copper and therefore valuable.

Correct. With fibre optic comms its the SFPs (little match box sized things that terminate the cable and then plug into the switches or routers) that the cables plug into that are worth a fortune.

Yebbut, fibre optic cable as used on Network Rail Fixed Telecom Network as well as having Magic Glass inside it has a considerable amount of aluminium armouring so it can be pulled off drums in huge great multi kilometre (although being railways I bet it's measured in chains) lengths without breaking the Magic Glass. This has value to thieving Feckless Itinerants who, I've been told,  have been know to push it onto the track such that it gets cut up into handy bite sized pieces by a passing train and then hoyed into the back of their 4 x 4 and whizzed off to the scrappie.  What they need is some nice ground anchors to hold it in place.