The trouble with the internet .....

...is that if it isn't working, I always assume it is something I did wrong!

Spent most of Saturday walking to the wee box that sits on the telephone table at the bottom of the stairs, and shaking my head despairingly at it while it flashed a red light at me. Taking the advice of every IT guy I ever met, I just kept switching it off, and then on again. I tried pulling the white cable out of the phone socket, and then the black one out of the back of the router. I went back to shaking my head despairingly.

I wondered eventually, after about 8 hours of head-shaking, if I might phone BT in case they could talk me through what I was doing wrong.

I phoned BT. A recorded message asked me if I was phoning from the phoneline I was calling about. I said yes. The recorded message told me there was a major Broadband fault in my area, and it would be fixed in a few hours.

Overjoyed that it was not my incompetence, I decided to go to the shop in the village and buy some nice wine to celebrate. When I got there I discovered young Arfan, who owns the shop, walking up and down with a phone in his hand, shaking his head despairingly as he listened to someone on the other end making suggestions about switching something off and on again!