Finally Tiscali have reconnected my broadband. After patiently waiting three weeks for them to transfer my account I phoned up to enquire where the service was. Ten minutes of Indian hold music later and they tell me that their understanding was that I didn't want my account transferred to my new address because it wasn't the 2Mb I'd originally signed up for (the exchange only supports 500k here).

That's right guys, change my address, leave my live account at the old one and I'll just soldier on with dialup. Or then again maybe not. Seriously, if they want to subsidise the cost of transferring account by cutting customers off for a month (but still charging us) then that's their perogative but at least give us the option to pay for a faster reconnection.

Turns out that the "15 working days" (quickest it can possibly be done sir) it takes to switch your line can actually be reduced to "10 real days" but only when they realise they've really boo-booed. What a surprise.