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BT Midband: Just like ordinary dial-up, only without the good bits (part 2)

My crazy rant about BT’s Midband internet service yesterday wasn’t completely out of the blue. I have spent time with the product. Too much time, in fact. It took me about an hour to wade through BT’s hundreds of customer service and sales numbers to even order Midband. And then I spent three and a half fruitless hours on Saturday trying to get it to work. And failing.

I’m going to be cutting and cruel to BT in the rest of this article, but I do have to give them some credit up front: after spending 20 minutes on hold to their dedicated Midband Technical support help line, the woman I spoke to was top notch. I’ve dealt with a lot of helpdesk operators in my time, but never has first-level support been so clued-up and helpful. Maybe I got lucky, or maybe the Midband people are all like this. Whatever the case, I was very impressed. (The conclusion we eventually came to was that there was too much line noise. An engineer is being dispatched to investigate.)

Anyway, on with the disaster movie.

Continue reading “BT Midband: Just like ordinary dial-up, only without the good bits (part 2)”

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BT Midband: Just like ordinary dial-up, only without the good bits (part 1)

If you’re unfortunate enough not to live in an area covered by cable or BT’s sporadic ADSL service, you used to be limited to dial-up. But the British government and communication regulators have been very keen to show that Britain is “showing global leadership” with regard to the adoption of broadband. So BT (provider of the UK’s telephone infrastructure) has been urged to speed up their roll-out plans, and to look into alternative technologies to serve hard-to-reach areas (like Scotland).

Hence: Midband. Midband is neither dial-up nor broadband, but a demented hybrid that combines the worst aspects of both, and then discards any vestiges of quality the sickly offspring might have retained. In fact, it’s ISDN. The meeting where the service was green-lighted must have gone something like this:

Senior Executive #1: Guys, we need to bridge the gap between dial-up and broadband. We can’t get broadband out to remote areas quickly enough, and if we don’t show some progress soon, I’ll be in danger of losing my six-figure bonus.

Senior Executive #2: It’s worse than that–some members of the board think they might miss out on a knighthood in the next honours list!

Senior Executive #1: Jesus.

Pause for deep thought and reflection upon the fickle nature of job security.

Junior Executive: Hey, why don’t we part-upgrade all the remote exchanges to something cheaper but slower than real broadband? We could call it, I don’t know, Midband?

Senior Executive #2: Mmm, nice. But we’d have to go back and re-upgrade all of the exchanges later. Future costs against current benefits. I’m not sure if the board would go for it.

Senior Executive #1: I like that Midband name, though.

Senior Executive #2: Catchy.

Continue reading “BT Midband: Just like ordinary dial-up, only without the good bits (part 1)”

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BMW Films

If you have a broadband connection, or if you’re willing to tie up your phone line for a good few hours, head over to BMWFilms.com. In 2001, BMW funded a series of short films, collectively called “The Hire”, as a branding exercise. They pulled in directors like John Frankenheimer, Tony Scott, John Woo, and Ang Lee, and put together a fantastic collection of 8-minute slices of Beemer Lovin’, filled with intrigue, car chases, and Clive Owen. Clive plays “The Driver” in all of the films. Cracking stuff. (Via Tagliners)

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Matchbox Twenty Concert, Glasgow SECC, 4 Sep 2003

Scott and I went to see Matchbox Twenty at the Glasgow SECC yesterday evening. The Scotsman critic gave them a panning:

“Well, the 40-somethings who politely took their seats in the half-full venue bopped along obediently, but for non-devotees it was hard to distinguish between pop music and the lame sound of watered-down 1970s-inspired rock disappearing into its own bloated guitar solo. “

Uh, did she go to a different gig? It wasn’t sold out, true, but from where we were sitting, I could only see tiny patches of free seats, and the bulk of the audience seemed to be made up of late-teenage girls and twentysomethings. I can see her point about the crowd “bopping along obediently,” though. Rob Thomas did a practised job of persuading us that we were a good audience, but to the crowd did feel lukewarm and flat.

The sound was indistinct and lacking in separation. I noticed it especially with Paul Doucette’s (funky clear perspex) drums. The bass was deep and loud, resonating in my chest. His two snares were crisp and tight, but the cymbals were dull and vague. I could barely hear his ride unless the rest of the band was going through a quiet patch–and Doucette is quite an energetic hitter.

Nevertheless, I had a great time. Unlike the Scotsman, I like Matchbox Twenty, and they played a set to satisfy any fan. Most of the material was from their latest album, More Than You Think You Are (they played all but one of the songs from the album), but they also played a selection of earlier material, and even a very pretty cover version of Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time. They mixed up the pace a lot; there wasn’t any section that was consistently up-tempo or downbeat. Because they never built the show up to a proper climax, this may have contributed to the lack of fizz in the audience. But that’s the nature of the band. They’re equally comfortable with energetic rock as they are with slow, moody and melancholy tunes.

And besides, I just get a kick out of watching live music at all.

Set list:

  1. Feel
  2. Real World
  3. All I need
  4. Soul
  5. Disease
  6. Could I Be You
  7. Cold
  8. 3 A.M.
  9. Hand Me Down
  10. If You’re Gone
  11. Bright Lights
  12. Bent
  13. Hang
  14. Unwell
  15. Back 2 Good
  16. Downfall
  17. You’re So Real
  18. encore: Time After Time (Cyndi Lauper)
  19. The Difference, part 2
  20. Long Day
  21. Push
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The fashion-conscious geek

I rarely enjoy shopping for clothes. I like having nice clothes, and I enjoy wearing them, but I hate the time it takes to choose them. I was raised in South Limburg, the southernmost tip of the Netherlands, where the people are naturally stylish, and where they add fashion sense to the drinking water instead of fluoride. But I’m also a geek. Geeks (or nerds) have inner “anti-fashion” demons whispering to us whenever we enter a clothing shop. “Does it hide your nipples and gonads? Yes. Does it cut off the blood to your legs? No. Great. Now lay down the cash so we can hit the computing section in the bookshop next door!”

I like Levi’s. I like the cut of Hugo Boss suits (their web site sucks, though). I like a nicely tailored pair or Ralph Lauren trousers, and the crisp feel of a Thomas Pink shirt. But do I want to pay twice or three times the cost of a normal garment just to sport a brand label? Holy crap no.

I’m therefore always delighted to find something that fulfils the four criteria of the fashion-conscious geek:

  • It looks good
  • It looks good on me
  • It doesn’t cost the earth
  • It’s available off-the-peg in the first shop I visit

I found two such items last week: a pair of classic blue Converse All Star sneakers, and a plain demin jacket. I can’t believe I’ve never owned either of these before. The All Stars are comfortable like slippers. They are the timeless sneakers: relaxed footwear that is effortlessly stylish.

As for the denim jacket, I passed by the £70 Levi’s jacket in favour of a £25 off-brand. Cheap! I’m not going to claim that it looks the same as the Levi’s version, because it doesn’t. Any denim jacket connoisseur will instantly see that it doesn’t have a trendy label. But my one doesn’t try to go beyond the archetypal denim jacket by adding excess frills, zips, clever pockets, or decorative seams. It has the same kind of elegant simplicity as the All Stars.

The jacket and shoes also look great together, combined with a T-shirt and a pair of chinos or cargoes. As soon as I bought them, I knew they weren’t going to be part of my wardrobe–they were going to be part of me.

The true test for the clothes came as we were passing through Schiphol airport over the weekend. Anyone who spends a lot of time in European international airports knows the game of Nationality Spotting: trying to figure out what country a passing stranger comes from. After a while you develop a sense for the way people from different countries look. You start to recognize the characteristic genotypes, the way they dress, and the way they style their hair. It’s generally pretty easy to tell the British from the Dutch, the French from the German, and the Americans from everyone else. It gets more difficult when you have to distinguish between the Dutch and the Germans, or the Spanish and the Italians, but a talented Nationality Spotter can get pretty good over time.

The staff at Schiphol airport are all professional players. If you look like you’re Dutch, they will start speaking to you in Dutch. Otherwise, they will start speaking in English. (Unless they happen to tag your origins and also speak your native language. Not uncommon.) Even if you then turn around and reply in Dutch, they may continue to speak in English, just in case you have learned some stock replies (like “dankuwel” for “thank you”, etc.) and don’t have any further depth.

I usually get addressed in English. Being genetically Scottish through and through, and living and shopping and getting my hair cut in Scotland, it’s pretty hard to avoid looking like anything other than a Brit. But this time round, I managed to get spoken to in Dutch every time! Yay!

I understand that this may sound like an absurdly small victory, in a non-existant contest of surpassing pettiness, but it matters to me. I lived in The Netherlands from 1978 to 1989. Since then, I have been back only rarely. My Dutch skills are very rusty. My knowledge of Dutch current affairs is virtually nonexistent. I have neglected a large part of my upbringing–a large part of myself.

It’s only in the last few months that I have come to realize that I really miss the Netherlands, and the side of me that is Dutch. So what has changed?

I’ve got my High School reunion coming up at the beginning of October.

I’ll be writing more about this soon.

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