h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The extra half hour of dialysis has its good points and its bad points. Good - I *just* made it in in time to get a proper lunch, instead of a sandwich!

Bad - I'm unbelievably knackered. I got home 40 minutes earlier than usual, but I wasn't fit to stand in the kitchen to prepare a snack - I grabbed a yoghurt and fell asleep as I finished it.

Eventually, I woke up enough to watch yesterday's "Law & Order", but I can't keep my eyes open to watch anything else. I watched "The Bridge" in the ward.

And the "cut off"...? My 'phone isn't working. I get no dial tone, and when I try to dial a number the display flashes up "Impossible". It doesn't seem to have affected my broadband, but I have to 'phone Mother tomorrow so I hope it sorts itself by then.

If you had sound drivers and the right hardware you could use Skype Out to phone your mother... I use it if I want to phone overseas. Phone calls cost a fraction of a penny a minute, even to Europe, and the cost of a domestic call would be vanishingly small.

For Skype you need working sound and a microphone, and a webcam if you want Video Calling. I think it's excellent. I remember a 6 hour Skype session with Bob once back in about 2011, when he helped me configure my Ubuntu desktop.

I have Skype on my iPod, but she wouldn't cope with the delay.

But it's all right - when I was fit to do a little investigation it turned out it was just one handset out of the three that was b*gger*d, and putting in new rechargable batteries got it working again.