Hubbub

Gah!

No internet access at home! This is disastrous. It's disasterous. It's dis'tr's. It's all those things and more.

On Thursday night, our broadband hub stopped working. And now we're cut off from the outside world (except for phonelines, television, and going outside).

It's not too bad, I suppose. It's better than having no hot water. Or no oxygen. But it is still annoying that I can't look up obscure actors on Wikipedia, or download hilarious pictures of cats acting in a manner unbefitting to cats.

We're getting a new hub delivered on Friday, but until then... I'll have to resort to using it at work. Which isn't so bad.

(If you work with me, I'm writing this in a designated break period. I assure you.)

I had to phone up BT on Saturday. Get ready for a rant!

Everyone I spoke to was...

extremely helpful.

I think I may have broken the internet by talking positively about BT or call centres in general. But everyone I spoke to was polite, clearly spoken and friendly.

The trouble with call centres (and probably everything else), is you only ever hear horror stories. It's not that people never have a good experience, it's just that you tend to remember the difficult times. I know I do. I hate awkward or unhelpful phone conversations.

But when no-one talks about the positive times, it makes call centres seem like the worst things in the world. When really, they're probably not even in the top ten.

Of course, if the new hub doesn't work, I might change my tune.

I usually change my tune anyway. I mean, no one wants to listen to the same tune all the time (especially if it's 'The BT Appreciation Blues')

Changing your tune raises questions of hypocrisy. But, as I've said before, I don't know why hypocrisy gets such a bad rap. You don't accuse holiday makers of hypocrisy for not sticking to their country of residence.

"Oh, I get it! All these years you've lived in Burnley, worked hard, built a home. But now you're off to Athens for a week. You make me sick, you hypocrite."

***

That was odd. I was talking about BT, and my brain seemed to wander off like a wayward child. I jumped to an example that was only tangentially related to my point, and probably meaningless.

But that's my technique. I start a sentence in one place, and by the time I'm finished, drenched in sweat and sand, I find myself in a huge temple carved out of the rocks, glistening with mildew, and where is Andrea now? Lost? Deserted? The time for questions is over. There's only a single exclamation mark carved into my back, and a hyphen in my brain.

***

BT played me Greensleeves as I waited. That's really stuck around, hasn't it? They haven't changed their tune for 500 years. Of course, there was no BT then. (It was still called British Telecom)

The song was apparently written in the 16th century. That's a proper oldie.

I can't really imagine - -

[AT THIS POINT I INTENDED TO SPECULATE ABOUT THE LONGEVITY OF A CURRENT POPULAR SONG. UNFORTUNATELY, I COULDN'T THINK OF ANY. I DON'T THINK I COULD NAME A SINGLE NO 1 SONG FROM THE PAST YEAR.

SO INSTEAD, HERE'S A PICTURE OF ME EATING A BANANA]