(Note: this was actually written yesterday, but wasn’t posted because – hey! – NO INTERNET. Since then I’ve emailed a complaint to two different people at Virgin Media, but haven’t had a response.)

So, the Virgin Media engineer who was booked to come out to us today to fix our internet? Isn’t coming. Because Virgin cancelled the appointment. Thirty minutes before it was due to happen, because obviously our time isn’t important AT ALL, is it? Hell no, we can change our plans for you, Virgin Media, but don’t worry about letting us down at the last minute or anything, we’re only customers, after all!

And the reason they’re not sending the engineer? They’ve decided there is a “network issue in our area”. Well, it’s great you could finally join us in the “People Who Knew There Was a Network Issue in the Area” club, Virgin Media, because we told you that on Friday. It was obviously a network issue. The fact that it’s taken them FIVE FULL DAYS to work that out – five full days during which we’ve only occasionally been able to access the internet – is just unacceptable to me. If it takes them five days to work out there’s an issue affecting a whole area, then it doesn’t really inspire much confidence in them, does it?

So. Five days without the internet. Two missed appointments. Huge disruption to our lives and business. And the next time the weather’s hot, it’ll probably happen again (one of the many, many people we’ve spoken to over the past few days confirmed that there’s an issue connected to “hot” weather.). Obviously we realise that sometimes things go wrong: as Terry says, it’s how the company deals with those things that matters, and, once again, Virgin Media are doing a fantastic job of convincing me they really don’t give a crap about their customers.

I think it’s time to start investigating new ISPs…

I’ve had barely any internet access since Friday afternoon. I KNOW! How have I coped? Well, “badly” would probably be the most accurate answer to that. Especially given that, even as I write this, I know there’s a really good chance my internet connection will go down again soon.

How do I know this? Because we’re having what counts as a “heatwave” for the UK. And every time – every SINGLE time – this happens, our broadband dies. It seriously never fails. Unlike, say, our internet connection, which has failed multiple times since Friday, meaning that I’ve now missed two days of work, and also that dress on eBay that I really wanted to bid on but missed because – hey! – NO INTERNET.

(Oh, and the internet on my iPhone? Also not working. And I think there’s probably a really simple reason for that, but I don’t know what it is, because, guess what? NO INTERNET.)

Virgin Media have booked us an engineer for tomorrow . This is to replace the one they had booked for today, but which they cancelled when we told them we thought the internet was working again. (It was at the time, but like I say, it’s intermittent. Sometimes it comes back just to taunt us, before dropping out again. Fun times, people, fun times.) When we called them back an hour later to say that, whoops, NO INTERNET, they were all, “Well, that’s OK, on account of how we didn’t ACTUALLY cancel the engineer call out anyway, we just SAID we did. But we didn’t. So he will come out on Monday and fix your internet!” And we were all, “Are you sure? No, are you absolutely sure, because we don’t think you are?” And they were all, “Phshaw, seriously, the engineer will be with you on Monday, we super-guarantee it with cherries on top!”

So, yeah, the engineer didn’t show up. Because they had cancelled him. So then Terry got to speak to Virgin on the phone for an hour and a half. He got to speak to just about everyone who works there, with the exception of anyone who could actually help him. The upshot? NO INTERNET. For FOUR DAYS now.

So. Obviously this experience has been a little bit like losing a limb. (It’s also been a LOT like losing money, on account of how I run an internet-based business, and for the last four days? NO INTERNET.)  I’m now so far behind with work that it’s going to take a small miracle for me to catch up tonight, and I also feel a bit like I’m blogging against the clock, frantically trying to get stuff written before this brief window of internet access slams shut once more.

Anyway, we’re hoping this will all be fixed again tomorrow, but if you never hear from me again, you’ll know why.

Well, folks, I may not have much of my sanity left this week, but by God, do I have a clean house – and not just because of my borderline OCD interest in cleaning this time.

No, it’s because the Internet keeps going down. And when there’s no Internet, ain’t nothing to do but pace anxiously around the house, randomly cleaning things as a kind of frenzied displacement activity, right? Right?

It happened for the first time yesterday afternoon. There I was slogging womanfully through the massive amount of posts about shoes I had to write by the end of the week, and suddenly my computer went on a Go Slow. Each page would take five minutes to load, sometimes longer. Other times, it would time out altogether, leaving me frantically hitting the “refresh” button, because as we all know, THAT HELPS.

I put up with this for as long as I could stand it, which was about ten minutes, then I called Tech Support, who I know simply as “Terry”.

Terry did manage to get things back to normal again, but it took a while, and by the time I was able to get back to work, the house was sparkling, I kid you not. The work situation, meanwhile, wasn’t looking quite so good.

See, we’re going away this weekend. I may have mentioned it once or twice. Even although we’ll only be gone for one night, leaving early Saturday and getting back late Sunday, this trip has taken a helluva lot of arrangin’. I would say this is because we own a business, and it’s hard to go away for a break when you own a business, but actually, I think it’s just me. I am high maintenance. Packing for one-night away will take me hours. Hours. Let’s just say I don’t travel light – in fact, even although it’s one night away and we’re only travelling to the south of England, we’re having to take a suitcase rather than a carry-on, just so I can bring all of my makeup and toiletries. Oh, and the iron.

Anyway, so I’m high-maintenance, I know that. And because I know that, I had set aside all of Friday afternoon for packing. This meant that the work I would have normally done on Friday afternoon and evening had to be done earlier this week. I decided to do it on Wednesday, and when the Internet suddenly decided not to play along, I silently congratulated myself for this feat of forward planning, for I still had all of Thursday to do this massive chunk o’ work! Why, I was one clever cookie, no?

Well, no. Not really. Because today we came back to the office after Neighbours lunch, and the Internet wasn’t working AT ALL. D’oh!

Prompted by my shrieks of dismay, Terry got right on the phone to Virgin Media, who are our Internet providers, hereafter referred to as the Imps of Satan. After a few short minutes, they confirmed what we already knew: there was a problem with the network in our area. Would they be doing anything about it, though? Oh hell to the no. I mean, you must be joking, it’s not like we pay for this you know… oh no, wait. We do.

The Imps of Satan, you see, have a policy. The policy is that when a customer makes them aware of a problem with the Internet connection in a particular area, Virgin Media do absolutely nothing about this. At all. Instead, they wait until other people from that area call to complain. Only when a certain Magic Number of complaints is reached will they send someone to fix the problem. Until then? Nothing.

Now, this is clearly the dumbest policy in the world, ever. I mean, if you’re eating in a restaurant and you complain to the server that hey, there was a severed finger in your soup, they don’t just shrug and say, “So? We’ll wait until we get complaints about the other four before we do anything about that,” do they? No. (Well, it depends where you’re eating I guess.) No, if a customer has a problem, you try your best to fix that problem, you don’t just yawn and say, “Well, yaknow, if there were lots of people with the problem, we’d care, but seeing as it’s just you…”  Or, to put it another way, “Screw you, suckers! We’re not going to fix your stupid Internet until an angry mob beats a path to our door and demands we FIX THE INTERNET NOW.”

Trust me, I was totally willing to arrange this. I’m sure Rubin and I could totally act like an “angry mob”. No, really.

Anyway, that wasn’t the worst thing The Imps of Satan did to us today. No, the worst thing they did was slam down the phone when Terry called them back an hour later to ask what was going on. (And trust me, Terry was perfectly polite to the operator. She just slammed the phone down on him because she was a bitch.) Oh, and they also blatantly lied to him at one point too, just to get him off the phone. This was confirmed by the supervisor he eventually got to speak to after about two hours of no Internet, and another mad bout of house cleaning from me.

After that we gave up and resorted to dial-up. I know! Rocking it 1999 style! It was more or less the same as the day before when the computer had been on the Go Slow, only worse, because by then I wanted to break something – preferably something at Virgin Media.

So, it’s now 9pm, and I’ve only just finished making up the time I’ve lost. I haven’t even had time to think about packing the iron and all that stuff, although I have found time to worry quite a bit about dying a fiery death as my plane plummets to the ground on Saturday, because that whole “Not worrying about the flying” thing I was talking about earlier this week?”  Oh how young and naive I was back then! Thanks for all of the “plane crashing into the ocean” dreams you’ve served up in the intervening nights, subconscious! Is the hypochondria not enough of a stick for you to beat me with? Sheesh.

Anyway. The broadband connection is working again, although for how long, who knows. The work is finally either done or abandoned, because GOD, there’s only so much you can do with slow-speed dial-up, you know?

I have wine in the fridge. And a really, really clean house in which to drink it. And Virgin Media? I am SO coming to poke you in the eye, don’t you forget it…

UPDATE: For the benefit of anyone reading this in the future, as the result of a Google search, I am no longer intent on poking Virgin Media in the eye, and you can read the update to this story here.