(from 22nd December)
My dad has BT’s ‘Broadband Basic’ service. I phone BT to ask about upgrading to a service that can be used with a router.

The first BT-serf I speak with tells me that their lowest-cost but router- and mac-friendly option is ‘BT Broadband option 1’. It’s the same cost as Basic but with a higher download limit. I ask whether there’ll be any changes to my dad’s service apart from this, i.e. will his email address stay the same? The BT-serf doesn’t know so passes me onto one of her colleagues. He doesn’t know either and passes me on again, to “Mark James” who assures me that it’ll all go fine and that there’ll be no interruptions to Dad’s BT service.

Mr James asks dad to confirm that he’s happy for this changeover. Dad does so: he and I are both happy that it costs no more and, apart from being passed a couple of times until I actually get to speak to the operator who has use of the BT braincell today, I’m pretty pleased that it appears to be going so smoothly.

I then ask the killer question: ‘this is purely a change of permissions and billing, not a hardware change?’
‘Yes’
‘So you can do it today?’
‘I’ve just commissioned the change’
‘And it will be done by…?’
‘3rd January’

Maybe I’ve misunderstood the complexities of the task. Maybe BT are just covering their backsides. (Better not to promise something unless you know you can achieve it.) But 14 days … ? I end the conversation politely and walk away trembling… This means I can go back to Scotland for Hogmanay and to rent out my flat, then bring my router back here, rather than buying a new one for Worcester, but if BT stuff up, I’ll be in Scotland when they do and not due back here for at least a fortnight to sort out any mess which BT create but for which I’m ultimately responsible.

Before that, I walk into the vodaphone shop on Worcester’s High Street. I tell them that I’m interested in upgrading my contract to get a treo handset. (Even though I don’t like keyboards on Palms, I think it’ll be the best way to stay online while I’m in India.)
‘Sorry, we’re a “High Street” shop. For this product, you need to visit one of our business customer shops.’
‘Where’s the nearest?’
‘Birmingham Bull Ring’
For those of you who are lucky enough never to have been there, Birmingham is the UK’s second-largest city. It’s far better than London, principally because Brummies are on the whole decent folk with quaint accents who (at least until recently) make things. However, it’s still a concrete shit-hole, of which the Bull Ring is the epi-smegging-bastard-bollock-features-centre. Think of the Wellgate magnified by carcinoma to fill all of Dundee. No chance!

However, the vodaphone person was very helpful. He tells me that my current, much-travelled and apparently bomb-proof Nokia 3310 will work in India and just about everywhere I intend to visit. He also tells me where I can buy a battery for it. So kudos to him but sucks to his employers.

Sucks too to Carphone Warehouse who tell the same story.

I eventually braved the Birmingham experience: the Pismo and I arrived in the Bullring on the 28th December.

The vodaphone salesperson in their ‘business store’ couldn’t have been more helpful. She got me a 3G card and software CD, discussed the issues with me and then we started to install it. The instructions on the leaflet were “Insert the CD, then double-click the Mac installer in the window that appears…”.

No window, no sign of the installer anywhere on the CD after 30 minutes of manual and spotlight searching. The CD only contained PC software (which is the reason for this entry’s tag). So an end to that visit.

I then went to the AppleStore to consult with their ‘genius bar‘ about whether 3G cards had ever bene known to work in macs. The genius I spoke with said that vodaphone’s offering did work: they’d omitted the mac software from their installer CDs but it was available on their website. He’d installed it for a customer that week.

The subgebius was ignorant of all things Pismo-ish but his colleague overheard my questions and recommended I try Newertech for a replacement battery

I now have the installer on the mac but am still wondering whether the line rental and cost per megabyte make this worthwhile. If I can find a modem cable for my battered but brilliant Nokia 3310 and a modem script, I think I’ll be satisfied.

My dad’s subscription to Norton Anti-Virus had just expired. He was advised to buy the latest version, rather than simply renewing his subscription. So he handed me the new box of Norton installers and asked me to uninstall the old version, then install this.

Uninstalling is no problem. Installing the new Norton Internet Security (Anti-Virus plus firewall) goes smoothly. So does live-updating to the very latest set of virus definitions, etc.

Next in the packet is ‘Norton GoBack’. It appears to enable you to take your hard disk back in time to just before you did something fatal – a very nice idea but one in which I just don’t believe. Unless it makes multiple, date-stamped, on-the-fly duplicates of all your files, which appears not to be the case, how can it know what to restore? I consult with dad and on the basis that we’re not sure that it is a bad thing and trusting Norton to do things at least tolerably well, I install it. It goes OK, apart from demanding installation of .NET.

Finally, there’s Norton Ghost, which appears to do a very similar thing to GoBack but goes back to user-defined recovery points. The restart after installation is a nightmare. It spends forever ‘removing old GoBack’ data from the hard disk, then gets as far as trying to display dad’s desktop, then hangs. Restarts don’t help. All I can do is restart, use the grace period before Windows boots to choose not to invoke GoBack, then continue the Windows boot and uninstall Ghost and GoBack. The PC’s boot is now much slower, I’ve spent 4 hours on this installation, at least two of which were waiting for Ghost to do things to GoBack data and engendered a big yucky Norton icon on the system tray.

Back from the pub, I phone a friend. In the middle of the conversation, I notice that my washing machine has hardly got through the program I set off just before I went out. Switching off at the mains, then on again and restart doesn’t help. I think a fuse may have blown but the plug is right behind the machine and getting it out is a 2-person job.

So I return to the attack on the bedroom. Removal of the dust reveals patches of nasty sticky stour on the floor. I’m at a loss to explain them: suggestions please. So I will need to wash the floor as well as the walls.

Meanwhile I have an excuse for not washing!

I’m writing this on Thursday 22nd at 1pm. I have no idea when it will be posted because my parents’ broadband is the cheapest deal BT offer: it’s fixed so I can’t put a router in place of the BT-provide ADSL modem. There are mac drivers for this modem but I can’t be bothered moving the slaptop into my parents’ study and guddling with my dad’s cables. So later today I’ll talk to BT and get them to upgrade the service, then buy a wireless router and get all the computers in the house online properly as follows:

• my mum’s 300 MHz blueberry iBook wired into the router in the study
• my dad’s PC wired into the router in the study
• my Pismo wirelessed into the router
• my sister’s powerbook 2300c wired into my Pismo while both are on my desk. This might be a challenge because it runs OS 8·1 and I’m not sure if OS has TCP/IP networking. When the 2300c migrates to my sister’s room, I’ll string a cable from it to the study.

My Quicksilver is in its box in the loft and will probably stay there until I have a place of my own. Poor bugger will end up hating me for spending most of 2006 in a cold box. I wonder if my dad will notice if I substitute his PC for a real computer?

Meanwhile, as you can see, I’ve successfully migrated to Worcester. The drive was easy (at least for me) and I think Ian was happy with it. We lost a bit of time stuck behind traffic on the A68 but were able to pick up his kit from Catterick without any drama and the tool on down south. I dozed through most of Yorkshire – it’s huge – and almost before I knew it we were pulling off the M5 into Worcester. Total journey time around 8 hours 30 minutes for 400 miles, using £70 of diesel.

Not long after arrival, I went with dad to meet mum, Susan, Patrick (one of mum’s pupils) and Taryn (his wee sister) from a pantomime at the local theatre. While waiting for them, I was called by Louise and was still nattering with her when mum and Sue emerged from the theatre. Patrick and Taryn were shy and incredibly polite. I could learn from them!

Yesterday was unpacking day. I think I started around 9 am and had most of my kit packed away, washing in the machine and the Pismo as near to up and running as it can be without internet access by about 8 pm. This included building the great wall of Bruce-stuff in the loft, rationalising the use of drawers in the room here (I must remember that it’s not just mine: Ian has as much right to use it as I do), packing a book case with only the essentials (installer CDs, blank media, movie media and reference texts and re-learning how to fit into family life. So far no bust-ups!

Also yesterday, my mum’s new car arrived. It’s an exact replacement for the car that was totalled a few months, except it’s a pleasant red rather than the mundane silver-grey. Even better, her cheque from her insurers arrived this morning so she can refill the hole in her savings she dug to buy the car yesterday. The only unfinished part of this episode is that the insurers wouldn’t pay out the full replacement cost of the old car. So her solicitors are about to start legally working over the clown who wrote off her car for the ‘missing’ £1000. I hope the legal bill doesn’t erase the gains.

Just now I’m about to go into town with Ian and dad for some almost last-minute christmas shopping … waiting on my brother arriving.

Meanwhile I’m rediscovering why I like Roy Harper so much. I don’t think I can hear Stormcock too many times – there’s always something new there. However my current favourites are Glasto and The Monster on The Dream Society.

(Eventually posted via a Wifi network in Coffee Republic – who also serve soya milk. Yeehah!)

Found an app that bolts alarm-clock functionality onto iTunes. 8 am was a rude shock, mainly because I chose The Bloodhound Gang’s I hope you die for the alarm sound.

Yesterday, with a lot of help from David Collins, I packed most of my stuff into cardboard boxes, suitcases and the occasional bin-liner.

My brother arrived here about 10:30 in the evening and we chatted, ate curry and sorted how we would transfer stuff to the van.

Today, as usual, I woke far later than planned and phoned the van rental place to say that we would be pick up the van an hour later than originally booked. Their reply was ‘That’s a relief – it hasn’t arrived here from Edinburgh yet.’ I asked whether the driver could then just drop the van here, rather than taking it further north to Dundee and us having to go there to collect it. The van rental place said they’d arrange that and call me back 5 minutes later to confirm. 45 minutes later I called them to ask why they’d not called me and was told that the driver’s cellphone hadn’t worked so the van was just now leaving Dundee. 30 minutes later, they called again to ask where in St Andrews I was. I asked if the driver was circling St Andrews, looking for my flat and was told that the van hadn’t yet left. It eventually arrived around mid-day.

I won’t ask for any money back but if they try to charge extra for home delivery, well, no!

So far about half my stuff is in the van and there’s been very little drama. The worst was getting hit in the face by a piece of my desk as Ian and I disassembled it. I’ll try to get a photo of the inside of the packed van to show you all how materialist I really am.

Tomorrow we drive south via Catterick to pick up some of his stuff from his army base to take to Worcester. We then have until 5pm on Wednesday to unload the van and drop it off at the rental centre in Worcester.

Also my redundancy payment cheque has arrived. In no more than 5 working days I’ll have paid off the loan for the boiler, cleared my overdraft and said goodbye to credit card debt. Yeehah!

Packing the van is finished. Knackered ‘yeehah’.

Now Ian and I are going to watch his birthday present: Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy

This afternoon went far better than I had feared it might. Thank you.

Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch should paint your portrait. You are a very emotional person. You are always up for a good talk with one of your friends. You don’t like to keep things bottled up. Often, you are friendly and outgoing, but that can change very easily to being introverted and cold.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com