dug 
I’ve just had a few shitty connectivity days. First of all BT cut off my adsl line (yes, my payment was late, but I’m on a ‘business’ tariff and you don’t just cut off business users without a) a phone call b) an email) at 17:00 friday night. By the time I had figured out that the line was the problem, I called them and tried to settle my outstanding bill. Turns out they go home at 17:00 on Friday and are closed over the week-end (fume).
Anyway, I bollocked the tech support manager and they re-connected me, but then the network went down on wednesday in a thunder storm (we actually had a lightning strike blow some stuff up - v. rare in London) and I’ve just spent the last two days repairing and replacing bits and bobs.
But on the bright side, in the process, I figured I as well get the router flashed so drove up to the Hertfordshire countryside just north of the M25 to the little shop that sold me the router. Now, while-you-wait didn’t mean quick, so I ended up spending a large part of the day parked at a little pub by a stream drinking warm beer and smoking a Hoyo de Monterey double corona (yumm) while reading the Guardian.
Richard Dawkins, an Oxford science don, suggested Mr Bush was just as much of a danger to world peace as Saddam Hussein, adding: “It would be a tragedy if Tony Blair were to be brought down through playing poodle to this unelected and deeply stupid little oil-spiv.”
“unelected and deeply stupid little oil-spiv” I just let the words roll around for a while. Go Dawkins, go get ‘em boy. So when the router was ready to collect, I decided to take the shortcut across the stream (it was a proper ford, no problem for the trusty GS) which while fun, was also very wet, as I totally miscalculated the depth of the thing:-)