A friend who works in IT tells me most queries are a PICNIC - Problem In Chair Not In Computer. Hmm.

My broadband connection has been down since Monday and I have made more phone calls than enough to the technical support people for my ISP (who evidently won an award for this...).

The 'troubleshooting' is a bit of a joke - 'is your router plugged in?', 'is the LAN cable connected' etc. After three variants on this, my query was 'escalated' which meant a 'senior technician' took 24 hours to confirm that my account was live and connected at their end... then asked me for the umpteenth time whether I had a microfilter, had a swapped it for another one and questions designed to make my patience get tested. They have now decided that the problem must be the line (never!) and have referred it to BT who will check the line in the next 48 hours or so.

In the meantime I have discovered that there are no cyber cafes in Didcot (where I was at a meeting yesterday) and not having a laptop I can hardly lug my PC to an open access wireless 'hotspot' so today I am back in Leicester drinking my skinny fairtrade latte and reading emails at £2 an hour. So while cyberspace is enjoying the peace and quiet, I'm feeling very out of touch with the world.

Blogging will disappear until broadband resumes... enjoy the escape from my drivel.