Espe & I went to the car yesterday to go to see a friend perform in a concert (something we keep missing for various reasons). Exiting the lift we found the garage door had been forced open from the inside.

Once into the garage, I discovered that it wasn’t only the garage door that was forced, but the door on my car as well. Some little oiks had broken into the garage and then into my car. All they’d taken having ransacked the whole car was about 80 cents and a deformed 50 pence piece. They even left the stereo, presumably as they didn’t have the front panel for it.

So no big losses, but they well and truly buggered up the passenger door, leaving us unable to go out after all. Even more annoying as if they’d looked at the drivers door, they would have seen the screwdriver hole from the previous attempt… a much easier way in.

Turns out it wasn’t the only car done over. One of the neighbors had a window smashed and the stereo stolen.

Obviously I was a little bit peeved at all this, but not as annoyed as I was at the thieves that call themselves Telefonica.

They charge 40 euros a month for a 1mb dsl connection (not a good deal in this day and age) and then when you have a problem with their line charge you per minute for technical support.

Our line went down yesterday. I didn’t want technical support, I wanted to report the line as down. On the tech support, I explained what I’d tried and tested and that the problem lay in the dsl connection. They then proceeded to run me through mundane tasks identifying what I’d just told them. Upon discovering that the problem was with the dsl line they told me that my problem was with the firewall and anti virus software I had installed and hung up!

Third attempt at speaking to the technical support (at my own expense), I spoke to someone remotely competent. He took it all on board and started running some tests from his end. Suddenly the line cut off… Further proof of the connectivity problems we were having.

All very infuriating, but today’s another day and by the end of it I should be in the Pyrenees ready for a weekends Snow Boarding.

Just had to add this. I was telling Philippe how my car had been broken into. He was shocked at how on earth someone had broken my car in two. Another one of those language gems.