bunn

Well the ADSL *sort of* works. Zen get a Gold Star for correctly diagnosing that the BT engineer 'I haven't been doing these installations for very long' had incorrectly wired up the main phone socket, AND coming up with an effective workaround - but a Stinking Dead Rodent point for their total inability to deliver hardware. We went to PC World in the end, which meant:

- I had to break my resolution never to buy stuff from PC World

- I got an overpriced Belkin wireless router rather than the very nice Draytek one I really wanted

- I had to be bitterly sarcastic to the guys at Zen to prevent them from charging me a 'restocking fee' for a router they had failed to deliver as promised (I was: they withered).

- I had to spend what felt like WEEKS in a BT queue, then explain my problem to Bangalore, then to Edinburgh and finally to Birmingham. Birmingham was the only one who didn't reply with terrified incomprehension.

- I learnt that 'modem' has become industry parlance for 'thing what connect you to internet' even if it don't modulate / demodulate any more. Like Hoovering with a Dyson.

- IT WORKS!

At last broadband has landed - or so we are told. The BT guy has already been here once to disconnect our ISDN line and connect it up: alas, he could not make a connection :-(. He has gone away again to see if the connections are properly set up at the exchange. In the meanwhile, ISDN is working again, but I don't know how long for, so it is hard to do any work knowing the thing might be turned off again at any moment...

There is no standard 'impatient' mood icon! What sort of person sets up a list of moods that doesn't include impatient? Impatient is practically my default state: all other moods are temporary variations on that theme.

And as I was typing this, the connection went down. The BT guy is now sitting here waiting for the new ADSL connection to be made live, and is phoning round all the BT helplines in an attempt to get this speeded up. It is nice to know that even inside BT there are no secret tricks that make the whole process more efficient.

Apparently the second line we ordered (so we keep our 2 phone numbers) will be installed next week by another BT engineer - because heaven forbid that it could all be done by the same guy on the same day!

... an hour later, the ADSL is now live, but the router hasn't arrived from Zen, so this is posted via crappy modem dialup. Ah, the dulcet tones of negotiating modems.