I went to the gîte next door in the morning to use their wi-fi to check emails, and to start the process of ordering a satellite dish for internet access. Now the gîte originally had satellite internet through a French company called Nordnet, but it was apparently very unreliable, and too expensive for the service received. So a couple of months ago they switched to…. wait for it….. Orange.
Well, I was able to send and receive emails all right, although the connection was a bit slow, and dropped out once or twice.
It was a scorching hot day today, and they’re predicting thunderstorms tomorrow. Which means yet more rain, oh joy. We weren’t really able to enjoy the sunshine though, as it was incredibly humid. I spent the rest of the morning constructing a frame for the photovoltaic solar panels and sweating profusely. I should be able to connect them up tomorrow. LSS managed to cut some grass with the lawnmower, and then nearly buried herself in the garden trying to turn the soil over with the tiller in order to get it to dry a bit. The soil is still very wet. Well, the garden may not produce much this year, but at the moment the crop of mosquitoes and horseflies has been impressive.
In the late afternoon I went back to the gîte to check if I had any replies to my SOS messages about getting a satellite internet connection (not through Nordnet, I hasten to add). Guess what?
Correct.
Their internet connection had gone down. Using some command-line tools I was able to trace the problem to the Orange name server (the computer which tells your browser where to go to get to a website). As a test, I asked it to look up www.google.com. If I translate its response into English, it was basically “Google? Never heard of it. No idea where to look. Sorry, can’t help.”
There are normally two name servers (one for backup purposes). Unfortunately it appears the main name server also didn’t know where the other one was, so couldn’t ask it for help.
As for OUR Orange progress report, LSS has now received text messages from the manager of the Orange shop, saying that Orange are desperately trying to talk to LSS but, for some reason, the phone doesn’t work.
No, really?
LSS has asked for a message to be passed back saying that she’ll be in town giving an English lesson between 17:00 and 18:00 today, and they can try her mobile then.* Although she’s not really interested in speaking to them, she just wants them to fix the problem.
*They didn’t.
Actually, dealing with Orange bears all the hallmarks of that somewhat old joke about onions. You must have heard it.
A man goes into a Portuguese greengrocer’s shop and asks for a pound of onions.
“Sorry,” says the greengrocer. “We don’ta hava no onions.” (You’ll have to imagine the accent.)
“Oh dear,” says the customer. “Well, in that case, I’ll have a pound of onions please.”
“But I justa tella you!” says the greengrocer. “We don’ta hava no onions.” (Actually he sounds more Italian, but never mind.)
“Ah, I understand,” says the customer. “Yes. Hmm. Well, instead I’ll just have a pound of onions.”
“Right!” exclaims the greengrocer. “How do you spella the ‘Tom’ in ‘Tomatch’?”
“Tee Oh Em,” says the customer.
“That’sa right! Now, how do you spella the ‘Pot’ in ‘Potatch'”?
“Pee Oh Tee,” says the customer, puzzled.
“That’sa right!” exclaims the greengrocer. “Now, how do you spella the ‘F***’ in onions?”
“There is no ‘F***’ in onions!” says the customer.
“That’sa what I’va been trying to tell you!”
I’ll get my coat.