I don’t normally give three chances; I frequently don’t even offer a second bite at the cherry.

But, as I wrote earlier, something my hosting company did on New Year’s Eve means I can’t access my own sites at home. So I filled in the web site feedback form on the Virgin Media web site; got a standard reply back, saying that someone would be in touch in a few days.

Eight days later, when no-one had been in touch (strike one), I asked again; this time, I was told to call an 0906 number (strike two – they have all the info they need to flush my sites out of their cache).

But I dialled the number anyway, from my mobile phone. It rang, and rang, and rang, and then cut me off. Strike three Branson, you’re out!

Called BT this lunchtime, they’ll reconnect my line by next Tuesday. And as an Orange business customer, my broadband will only cost me a fiver, so I’ll be saving £9 per month and getting speeds of up to 5.5Mbps instead of up to 4Mbps that I’d had before. And I get to lose all the spam emails that come into my ntlworld email accounts too.

All I need is an ADSL modem, plug it into the phone line and my existing router, and away we go. Win-win-win, methinks

The phone call I have to now make to Virgin Media Customer Relations to disconnect my cable broadband should be interesting… wonder if they’ll offer me anything? Even if they gave it for free, what’s the point if I still can’t access my own sites?

PS – still, still no sign of the Wii.