I have finally managed to persuade BT to send an engineer to my local exchange to try and fix the problems with my broadband connection – this after a lot of long and stressful conversations on the phone to a call centre somewhere in India.

Apparently there was disturbance on my telephone line. The bloke on the phone claimed to have removed this disturbance. Despite my telephone now apparently “undisturbed”, the download speed cannot go above 1mbps. Which is shit.

This all after waiting by my phone for a call back from BT. A call back which never materialised. Apparently when they agreed to call me at 8pm the night before, for some reason they decided to call at 12.14pm. How the hell that works, I don’t know.

Cue another telephone call to BT and yet another excuse. This one being a “tag” on my line. To me, “a tag on the line” means my telephone either has an Asbo and as a result has to wear a bracelet on its ankle, or I am unable to change broadband providers – neither issue would result in a rubbish connection.

When I asked the lady on the phone for a further explanation, I was more than a little shocked by her response. I quote, with no word of a lie, “It is difficult… I do not know how to explain in English”

Luckily, they have promised an engineer will come and fix the problem within the next 48 hours. As this is a start of a Bank Holiday weekend, I will be surprised if the problem is resolved by Tuesday. I think a complaint is in order. If nothing else, I should be able to get some money off my next bill in a form of compensation for emotional distress… and for being bullshitted to.

Disturbance on the line, my arse…