Sorry to be so short with you but I'm tapped

On the off-chance that you're trying to email or phone me over the next four days, you can't. BT has disconnected my phone line because I didn't request it. I've confirmed three times with them that I didn't request it, and they've confirmed with me that indeed I had not and so the line would not be cut. So naturally it has been, at exactly the time they said it wouldn't.

I knew this would happen. I've seen foreigners in tears over BT. Locals grit their teeth and say it's like that for everybody. I try not to buy into the stereotype of a Certain Sector being so useless that they can't find their ass with both hands but this is the second time BT has done this to me in a year. The first time was in Brick Lane when engineer rang up in the middle of the day to test the number. 'Why?' I wondered, and with paranoid speed thought to ask which one. Not mine: he was installing a new connection and had crossed the line. 'That's okay,' he said, cheerfully. 'I'll put the old one back.'

I knew what was going to happen then, too. There was a click and the line went dead. Not my line - the new line. My line was still working, connected to a different address, so technically there was no fault on it. Explaining that to the call center person was like describing time travel to an elderly relative. BT took a week to fix the problem - a week of robot voice management systems, call backs, SMS updates, order numbers. Worse, BT try to charge users £125 every time they (re)connect them. Only a cynic (or someone with a barrister handy) would suggest that such technical incompetence is a positive factor in the company's revenue stream.

The quickest way to make progress with BT, it turns out, is to bitch about them on Twitter. Which sounds progressive and modern until you realise what BT must have done to have been reduced to that level of damage control. Such incompetence would be funny if it wasn't true - and if it were possible these days to even use the bathroom without checking online first. I need my Telephone Thing for everything, even when I'm not talking to anyone.