ATTEMPTING to get on broadband last week plunged our home back into the communications dark ages.

For the super-highway and the back lanes of the Cartmel valley do not sit readily together.

On Monday a man from BT arrived, scaled the pole on the other side of the lane and set about removing the antiquated shared-line system that has bedevilled previous attempts to join the brave new high-speed world.

We had gone to work by the time he came back down the pole, which was a pity because we found out that evening that not only did we still not have broadband, but we had no telephone line either.

So we had to phone BT on the mobile to report the fault, which in Field Broughton involves standing on a chair on the landing so that the pathetically weak signal can be picked up through the skylight.

It was actually necessary to stand on the chair for 45 minutes wrestling with BT's fully-automated system which thanked us for reporting the fault and told us that an engineer had been automatically assigned to deal with it and that we could expect him promptly at 8.30am in six days time!

We could altern-atively hang on in a queue and talk to an "advisor." Eventually we got through to the advisor who proudly told us that; "the fault is showing on my screen and had been timed as being received at 6.50pm and an engineer had already be assigned to deal with it."

"I know," I said. "I reported it," adding that it was the six-day delay in getting an engineer which was concerning us.

"I'm sorry," he said. "But once the computer has scheduled the work there is nothing I can do about it."

Eventually he conceded that because their bloke had messed it up he could upgrade my fault report to a customer complaint and he would pass that on to the right department.

"What was the name of the person I would be passed on to and what was his telephone number?" I asked.

"I'm sorry. We are not allowed to give out the number of the customer complaints department to customers," he said.

Eventually he reluctantly agreed to get the customer complaints man while I hung on.

To be fair the customer complaints man was very good, especially when I explained that the phone was vital for my 90-year-old father-in-law as we were out at work all day.

An engineer was sent next day to deal with the problem. By teatime on Tuesday the phone was working again but I still can't get broadband.

The point of all this is not to moan about my failure to get broadband, but to pose a question are BT really so short of engineers that it takes six days to get a fault fixed if you just sit back and accept what their automated fault reporting system tells you?

If anyone else has a similar problem I suggest skipping the fault line and going straight to customer complaints.

And how do I do that you may ask? Well the number they reluctantly gave me was 02920723598.

THOMAS STARS IN STEAMY VIDEO I HAVE been told about a little lad who lives in the Cartmel Fell area who is a great fan of Thomas the Tank Engine but became very upset at the video in which his hero goes up the wrong siding and gets covered in coal dust.

In an attempt to reassure him, mum and dad watched the video with him, told him how much they liked it and that it was all very funny.

Imagine their horror when they were entertaining a while later and their visitors asked the lad if he was still fond of Thomas.

"Yes," he said solemnly: "But mummy and daddy like the dirty video."