Communication Breakdown

Okay, if you start to blog you need to blog regularly. That's a given, right? So I need to tell you why there hasn't been a peep out of me since June.

It takes a lot of technology to power the Glastonbury Festival, as well as all the broadcast equipment used to transmit television and radio programmes from site. And guess what that technology did? It messed up my internet connection, thanks to something called REIN (repeated electrical interruptive noise - you learn something every day). Oh yes, it is a bonus to live so close to such a fabulous event, but it is NOT fun to be without internet when you are a journalist trying to file copy. Even if, as British Telecom said, the problem will only exist for a limited period.

That limited period lasted two whole weeks. Eventually BT resolved the issue, but since then the quality of my internet connection has been worse than ever. No time to blog, just time to grab windows of opportunity to file copy. Two weeks ago, the entire thing went dead again, and BT announced it was not going to fix it. By law, BT is duty-bound to supply me with a land line but, incredibly, it is not required to supply me with internet. Seriously. Even in the twenty-first century, when we are constantly reminded of the need to be digital, BT classes internet as an optional extra. Someone needs to rewrite the rules.

When I moved from London to the middle of nowhere, I made sure that this barn had internet access. Why would I buy otherwise? But three years down the line of persistent synchronisation problems, BT says I will just have to get used to the fact I can no longer have broadband, because it can't be bothered getting to the root of the problem.

How can this be? BT is the only company in the UK that owns and runs the wires from which our telephone and internet services operate. It's like Network Rail, who maintains railway track upon which different train companies run their services. BT maintains the wires for different phone and internet companies to do likewise. Er.... except it doesn't.

Amazingly, all of my neighbours are still connected to the net. Figure that one out, if you can. I wouldn't be online now if it weren't for the kindness of one of them, who has hooked me up to his network. I want to blog, but more importantly I need to write to earn my living, and then I can blog.

The fight with British Telecom continues. But I'll tell you this for nothing - when I lived in London, everything was switched on for me. In the country, you don't matter. I think that's appalling.