Electric high wire act

While we were enjoying our morning coffee, we happened to glance out of the window and were astonished to see some men working on an electricity pylon nearby.  As we watched, one of the men crawled backwards over the insulator and eventually sat astride the cable:  I'm not sure how he kept his balance.  He was, of course, wearing a harness attached to a safety rope, but it appeared to offer little protection:  had he fallen it looks as if he would simply have swung down and hit the pylon (probably with some force).

I trust that the electricity was turned off!!

[PS: I know they can work on live cables, but only if they are within a complete Faraday cage - which this guy clearly isn't.  This photo was taken on the longest zoom setting of my compact camera, and still had to be enlarged and cropped heavily, so the quality may not be great.]