Probably. The government have done a fairly crappy job jog controlling cable infrastructure. We’ve now got a second company digging the village up to install more cable (Gigaclear did it 6 years ago) and BT putting up more poles because their current poleshare arrangement with the national grid doesn’t meet code and the national grid refuse to upgrade their shitty 1950s tat even though it keeps failing! Also current rules allow “others” to use BT/Openreach infrastructure but this is not reciprocal. Very wasteful 

Bit of a (gentle) rant. Our Virgin broadband contract is almost up. Last time, I went online and managed to renew at a bit less than we had been paying. This year I had a nasty feeling it may be trickier, and I was right.  Cyurrent price has just gone up to £28 odd and next bill was going up to £55 or suchlike. Online I was offered £29 odd for a new 18month contract. A check online suggest a new virgin customer would pay £25.99, plus I would get a £90 bill credit. Average cost £20.99. Hardly a reasonable way to treat a customer of about 5 years..... I phoned their retentions dept, after several presses of various numbers, and failed attempts at remembering my password for the AI interrogator, I spoke to a human. Who probably gets loads of calls just like mine.  After 10 minuyes of haggling, him checking with his "supervisor" (sounds b0110cks to me) we settled on £23 as the very best he could do. I believed him, so we have 18months , with a £3.50 price rise due next April. All this REALLY annoys me. I reckon next time I will swap to another supplier, as it seems nobody else can use the Virgin cables, so we would need a new fibre cable installed from openreach. That would probably entail me having to install the cable through the house (I had to with Virgin) unless we want the router in a rubbish place. I am assuming all teh other suppliers use openreach, so we would then be able to take advantage of just swapping provider and playing the game. Ho hum.  Right, time to go off on a little jolly in the Spitfire. Gill suggested a garg=den centre, that just happens to have a nice, informal cafe that does excellent carrot cake.....

Indeed.  Astonishing how often this happens.   Slightly related - on a longish walk in West Australia recently we happened across a couple of fellow walkers of about our age going the other way.  Scenery was fairly spectacular and they asked if we could take a picture of them together.  we did this, and they returned the favour for us.  Along the way we established that they are from a small Somerset village about 8 miles from us and he an I had previously spoken at a Haynes breakfast meet....

A small addition to my slate delivery story of yesterday. The firm is based in Bonnybridge and I asked the lad if he was from there too. Yes he was and turns out that he  and I were both at the same high school in 1978 in my last year and his first. Small world. And in keeping with the positive bollocks theme a lovely clear morning at breakfast time, looking north over the city and past @thebrookster's gaff, Ben More had a covering of snow and was positively glowing in the sunshine. That's the 'big' Ben More at Crianlarich, 1147m/3843ft high. It's about 38 miles away as the crow flies fae ma hoose. There are three Ben Mores, all Munros over 3000ft high (Beinn Mhor, 'big hill' or more poetically 'great mountain' in gaelic).  No 2 is called Ben More Assynt, 998m in SW Sutherland and No3 is Ben More (Mull) at 966m.

Ouch. That's not good Pete. And looks a nasty one that may need an op to pin it.

Ouch! Last thing you expected to happen. Wish your Dad a speedy recovery.

Oh bloody hell that looks nasty. I hope it’s a swift recovery for him.  🤞

Best wishes to your Dad!     Cruel to say, but a broken clavicle is probably the least worst bone to break!  Joh 

Oh dear. That’s very unfortunate . Which Somerset hospital are you dealing with?

On holiday in Somerset with the two kids and my parents, roped my aging dad into a gentle tennis match with self and 14-year-old. Up until last year dad was very active but time caught up with him abruptly, and now he's on all sorts of pills which may or may not do more harm than good. Anyway he reached for a shot, overbalanced, tried to correct by running to catch up with himself, and gathered enough momentum to crash to earth on his shoulder and break his collarbone in a plainly visible way. Bollocks, should have stuck to the ping-pong and pool table.