This not being able to use the internet, except when there's a prevailing wind and a downward slope is a pain in the bum. I've never had to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous dialup before. Working for and ISP, a dot.com disaster and a globally massive IT conglomerate I've always had huge, big fast connections where the bits and bytes whoooosh down the magic wires at breakneck speed. Being stuck on dialup is like having a very large sticking plaster removed very slowly from a very hairy limb. And as if the lack of speed wasn't bad enough, I keep getting kicked off the network. Maybe it's because my snail-like data packages keep tripping everyone else up?
I had a dose of the BT engineers today (apparently you can get a cream for it), they're playing 'hunt the interference' with fancy bits of kit that look like they've been used as makeshift goalposts in a game of kick the boulder. All grey and battle-scarred. Apparently there's possibly something a bit maybe slightly bit we can't be entirely sure yet, wrong with the wires between Casa MacBride and the next farm along but one. Probably fat-arsed pigeons bouncing up and down on the line. Damn fat pigeon bastards. Why don't they go out and get a job, eh? Spongers.
But Mr BT and his mate the Telecom Kid will be back tomorrow for more switching my phone off at the exchange and listening intently to wires. The only upside of this is that I can't do anything online all day and most of the night, so mighty has been the focus on the edit. I'm up to page 491 now, and I've already killed about 100 pages. Only 66 more to go, but I'm going to rewrite at least one, probably two of the remaining chapters.
At this rate I'll be finishing the damn thing on the plane back from Chicago...