Martyn Glanville: September 2008

TDC, you helped me!

Image via WikipediaIT IS ALWAYS good to have an unusual problem.

It makes people curious. Doctors wonder why you have green spots on your neck, mechanics why your car makes that knocking sound when they've looked at it three times now, my wife when I put on a particular shirt.

TDC couldn't for the life of them figure out why my home internet was on the fritz. New cables and routers couldn't fix it. Multiple pings got no answer. They got really interested. It was like being a freak. All manner of folk called me. Just before they conceded defeat and sent out an engineer (clearly an admission of failure in our wired world), one rasping tech-head (named Henning) felt sure he could nail the problem given a bit more time. He begged a day. I gave it to him.

He fixed it. Just gave me a new IP address. Bang-flash, I'm back online. I don't know what they problem was, or whether they knew.

So the next time you have a problem, and if no-one else can help (and if you can find them... no!), make sure it's something weird. It gets the best customer service.

TDC, won't you help me?

Image via WikipediaI HAVEN'T written this blog post.

It does not exist because my home web connection installed by Denmark's TDC has been on the fritz for two weeks now.

So I haven't been blogging.

This is/isn't here.

It has not been knocked out in a few minutes during my work day because I am a conscientious employee. That said, some folk are allowed to smoke a fag for ten minutes a few times a day, so this is, er, my fag break.

It drives me nuts having no internet at home. I have been relying on my BlackBerry, which has gamely stepped up to plate, providing me with my weather, recipes, footie news, and Twitter posts. But it is not the real thing.

Plan is that normal service will resume next week, but we'll see.

I don't want to have to keep writing these blogs that don't exist.

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Written while listening to: The 5th Dimension - Bobbie's Blues (Who Do you Think OfH)
via FoxyTunes

'Ej, 'Ej!

NOT READY for sleep last night, I completed my Danish homework and then slumped on the sofa and did a rare thing - watched Danish telly.

As usual, I started nobly, watching the news and trying to understand what had happened in my adopted home (something in Amager; after that it was all about Google releasing Chrome).

I'm not a great TV watcher, something not helped by having the world's worst cable package from yousee.dk. About a dozen really poor Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian channels.

Tiring of not really grasping the finer points of the news, I inevitably started flicking: white noise - nature programme - white noise - white noise - documentary about dead mountain climbers - white noise - Frost - white noise - cheesy Scandi soap - white noise - GOLD!

Pushing midnight, I stumbled across 'Allo 'Allo!. This curious effort of a sitcom has always held a strange fascination for me - a wartime comedy about French resistance to occupying Nazis as seen through the eyes of a randy cafe owner is weird enough. But the language is often the strangest thing. The French characters speak English with a bad French accent. The Germans speak English with a bad German accent. The English speak a toffee-nosed version of English - all chaps this, and right-ho that.

There is one character, a British SOE man named Crabtree dropped into France to spy disguised as a policeman, who is particularly odd. He is supposed to be fluent in French, but of course, he isn't. So he speaks English with a bad French accent. Eg, he might say the line, "I was just passing so I thought I'd drop in" as "Er was jerst pissing so Er thought Er'd drip in". The episode I stumbled upon last night was Crabtree's debut, and while he was new and his full comic potential yet to be developed, his general incompetence with language struck a chord with me.

I wondered if I spoke Danish as badly as he spoke French? I don't know. Interestingly, on many occasions now, my Danish has led people to believe I am Swedish. One chap refused to believe I came from England.

My colleagues always ask how my Danish is progressing and I always tell them the same thing: I won't say how good my Danish is. It gives me an edge if you don't know how much of what you say I understand.

But I like to think when I speak it, I am burbling in some Crabtree-esque version of Danish. That would please me.