Imagine a world without Broadband. That’s what we have had at Instanta today. So how come there’s this blog you might ask. Quite simple, my home Broadband is still working. But at Instanta (whose lack of connection appears to be a BT problem) the internet disappeared at about 11.15 and did not return. Considering that ten or so years ago it did not exist, it is amazing how much the business world has become reliant upon it. So what will be the result? No doubt tomorrow (if it’s back up and running) we will receive urgent emails that asked for overnight delivery of boilers and perhaps a service breakdown that needed urgent attention, which will be bad for our customers but completely beyond our control. Our bosses in Australia could be wondering where our daily reports are but enterprising Craig has given me the reports to send from home as well. So how could our customers have insured themselves against this inconvenience? By asking for email “read receipts” and, in their absence, phoning us up. I noticed one of the people I follow on Twitter having a dig at those who request “read receipts” but here’s one very good reason that they do. The problems for Instanta have been relatively small but if we were completely reliant upon internet orders it could have been an extremely expensive day.
What has one leg shorter than the other and squeaks? No it’s not a joke. Having gone to the hospital this morning, this was the scenario drawn up by my consultant as he explained to me the possible downside of having a hip replacement operation. It appears that he has to have a bit of a guess when he is sawing my femur and does it by sight. “But don’t worry” he added “if we get the length wrong we can always shorten or lengthen the other one when that needs doing”. As for the squeak, it seems that some hip replacements make a noise like a rusty hinge. Unfortunately I can’t be giving my hip a quick burst of WD40 or a drop of oil and if I am one of those unfortunate enough to be fitted with a squeaker I’ll be like one of those cats with a bell and you’ll hear me coming. These side effects apart, there’s always the chance of heart attack, stroke or infection. Happily the percentage risk of these is low but I suppose that’s what the 2% of people that it happened to said too. Oh well I’m on the waiting list now and I have told them that I can come any time after 30th November.
A young couple arrived in reception. “We’re from Monster Energy” they said. Although the young man had a T shirt and dreadlocks and his colleague was in torn jeans, Marion thought they were selling power and told them that we were with E-ON. But it seems that they were selling a new energy drink and gave us thirty free samples. I took one look at the calories and caffeine levels and gave them a miss but was happy to let the lads in the factory give them a try during lunchtime and the production line was hyper all afternoon.
You have to hand it to those witty headline writers in the British press. I was in the waiting room for quite some time this morning so amused myself reading the back of everyone else’s newspapers. Are “ROONEY THE PRO” or “ROONEY SHOWS HE’S A PRO” or “A PRO PERFORMANCE FROM ROONEY” a case of great minds thinking alike or, as I thought, pretty sloppy nudge nudge wink wink journalism? The thing that shocked me the most about last weekend’s stories is not that Rooney might have paid for sex (let’s face it he’s not exactly Brad Pitt) but that he shelled out £200 on a packet of fags.
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