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

Mina is on hols this week, and called in to say she won't be online this week, because her computer and phone line are playing up on her.

Poor Mina, she was off on holiday the other week and really missed being online.

Hopefully she'll get it all fixed and be back soon.

If you see her online drop by and tell me? I can't believe she's actually going to stay away for that long.

**Internet cafe... come here... Internet cafe this way**

The phone line is sometimes good enough for my modem to hear the dial tone - most of the time it can't. Although that's not as annoying as the phantom phone calls.

Thanks for letting people knowm I know how much they all love and miss me. (It's a bit empty around here... )

Aha, I knew you'd make it through!

What's it doing then, making too soft a dial tone or just too crackly? And just ringing on its own? Is it BT? Do you think its the phone line or the modem itself? Aren't you on broadband? I thought you were - if not, maybe now's the time!

It's the BT phone line, really crackly most of the time, so the connection kept dropping yesterday, then couldn't get back on as the modem couldn't hear the dial through the crackles. It seems a bit more stable today, but losing commection as I was about to post was driving me mad, so it was easier to just stay off.

The phantom phone calls are very annoying - the phone rings once, then shuts up. And it does this all day. I unplugged the upstairs phone last night, as the night before it kept waking me up. Seems quieter today, but the crackles are still there, and I've only been up half an hour so far.

If they don't fix it by the end of today, they are going to give me a pound a day. So I hope they don't fix it for a while. As long as I can get online now and then, I never use the phone anyway. If I didn't need it for broadband, I'd get rid of the house phone totally.

My mobile has gone in to be repaired as well.

What your new mobile? That's weird! What was that doing?

Maybe you live on a ley line or something!

All the calls were coming through on the loudspeaker. Remember the call I had on Friday being broadcast round the office? They were all like that. No privacy!

We had that a while ago. Turned out some prat from another company had installed anouther line into the 'box down the road, but had let water in. The crackling/calls were being caused by random shorts inside the 'box.

Oh yes,

I remember. I just thought you'd managed to press the wrong button somewhere, I'm always doing that on my phone. What a pain on a completely new phone!

My broadband went horribly wrong when it was set up, but works okay now. Apparently there was some old wiring for a party line in the wall, so the whole thing didn't work til the engineer came round.

Water in the pipes sounds possible KerrAvon, particularly with the lovely summer weather we're having, maybe Mina has ducks on the line, and it's the quacking that disturbing the modem.

The engineer chap did ask me if I've got water in the little junction box thing. The line was clear as a bell where it came into the house, but got a bit crap by the time it got to the box thing. So it was probably something to do with me decorating. I'd probably sanded the cable down a bit too much or something. It was all replaced free of charge, and I now have a working internet connection!

For anyone interested in the decorating, I now have a couple of sandy coloured walls. It's supposed to be 'straw' but sandy's good enough. I've already had to paint one door twice as not only didn't like the colour, I didn't like the shoddy job I'd made of it!

Woo Hoo!

How's the broken mobile doing - have you got that back yet?

Sandy sounds good - I hear it's a very fashionable colour at the moment - specially teamed up with lime green...

Lime green?

The mobile phone is going to be 2 weeks. So I'm back on an old one.

2 weeks! Don't they give you a nice shiny replacement one because you just bought it?

I'm off on holiday tomorrow! Hurrah!

I'm going to a hypnotherapist tonight - to attempt to stop smoking again.

I'd have to pay a £50 deposit for another phone for two weeks. I've never using that company again, I've already had to leave a £50 deposit for new phone when I bought it!

They told me on the phone that I'd be given a new phone, none of this repairing stuff. I miss my phone!

Have a good holiday, and I hope the course works!