la la la I can’t hear you

oh, that’s good. I like that. yeah, do it again. lucky me, BT Business Broadband has gone down on me for the fourth time in a week. They had a run on wet conductive flanges at B&Q this week, so Dave the engineer didn’t have anything to stick the 01603 exchange back together again, did he? Well cockadoodle bloody doo. I hit the speed dial now occupied by the BT Business Broadband status line. “Welcome to your internet service status line for BT Broadband, updated at 3:05 Thursday the 28th of April. We are aware of a technical fault at the Norwich exchange, affecting dialling code 01603. Our engineers are currently working on the problem, but Steve had to go and get a Ginsters from the shop, and Darren is currently on his mobile, flogging a Celica to a hairdresser from Penge. We tried Gary, but he got a bad knee, so it doesn’t look much like that red light on your modem is going to turn green today. I’d do it myself, but I’m in a lap dancing club in Wapping”

I did make some of that up, but my red light is still on as I scratch these words into my arm with a screwdriver, and I’ve just thrown a melon out of the office window at two dogs biting their own ears off in frustration. it’s the timing you see. I mean, it’s only Norwich right? you don’t need t’interneht to be in a tractor pull or to just stand on the edge of the village green, slapping yourself in the face with a haddock and mumbling about your sister’s mum’s boyfriend’s Civic. no mate, but I’m trying to publish the globalization development kit for 37 countries you see? they wanted it last week, when your sodding service was disrupted for 3 whole mornings in a row, so now I’m still here, wondering where I go to Read More about Massively Scalable Sun UltraSPARC IV Servers, looking out the window at a recalcitrent hoofer flicking her mane over a lovebite, wondering when you might be so good as to let me get online to see what Olga in the Ukraine needs me to do for her. it’s not too much to ask. not at 100 quid a month. I’m not even losing revenue. you’re just making me look like a dolt when I have to phone people to get them to tell me the number of the conference call I need to attend where I can’t update you on your email because I can’t currently read it and the update I sent out earlier isn’t there but the stuff you want is here but, oh, I’m sorry, you can’t have it because I’ve run out of pigeons.

there is one part of the message which directs me to the helpful web site, which of course is about as useful as telling me that if I can’t start my car I should take it to the garage, but I’m not going to mention that, because it’s such a lame horse of a target. dammit! couldn’t stop meself. I know, I’ll power cycle the modem. that’ll fix the exchange. it won’t be quite as exciting as power cycling the W2110z, when I put it face down on the carpet, sit a hamster on thegrill at the back and watch it whoooosh out the window as Sun Java Workstation Über Fan kicks into life making that noise for 10 seconds that makes everybody duck. ah, I remember getting Mike’s old IPX back in 1994 and thinking that was an object of desire, but that thing couldn’t make toast like this brushed-aluminum harlot. ooh, you are awful, but I like you.