Copydude left a comment grumbling at the internet speed in the UK.
All I can say is he should have been living in Athens and he wouldn't grumble. Until June last year just before we left, ISDN was the best you could get. We used to drool at the Dutch adverts on the satellite TV, providing "rasendschnell downloaden and internetten". One particular advert was my favourite with a pair of moles downloading music underground in the tunnel (burrow?) and rocking to the music so loudly that they woke the people in the house above. I guess they had wireless. I wish somebody would put that advert on Youtube, it was really cool (not a phrase I use very often). Then two months before we left a telephone call (itself a novelty) from OTE (the Greek telephone company) which provided us instantly with not too expensive, but rather slow DSL. Still it was enough for us to gear into action, and get Skype and wireless and our lives were changed. I even used Skype to announce that dinner was served, rather than shout to teenagers 3 floors up.
Now in Britain, we are thankful for small mercies. I am surprised to find that BT is the most reliable, since it often has problems (which we are prone to solve by using the wireless of our neighbours (a choice of 3)). Actually we know more about our neighbours' wireless systems than we do them. The wireless exchange seems to be mutual. BT's daft arrangement with Yahoo to host their email is always causing problems. Yesterday I could receive but not send. Very useful the day I decided to try Thunderbird. This morning it is working again, but no BT apology.
Anyone see why amazon.theworld was down yesterday? It would be the day I placed an order expecting next day delivery. Now it seems even despatch has a 4 day delay for things in stock. Must have been serious.
