One hour after I posted last a local BT engineer rolls up and tells me he had been allocated the job that morning.

I was very grateful - not quite the 24 hour promised response - but 48 hours is better than the five days BT were quoting only this morning.

It served once more to prove BT's right hand does not know what its left hand is doing.

Local BT guy tells me he is dealing with a lot of water based issues at moment - so I tell him about the other elderly neighbour, he calls his control - gets the job allocated and he fixes that too - a twofer and all before 4:00pm. He was a star.

Received "escalated call" after 5:00pm from BT to tell me that they now accepted job was a priority and would be dealt with "urgently" - they were almost deflated when I said repair in fact had just been reported complete.

I am grateful the linkline is re-established.