A biblical history of telecommunications in the UK

In the beginning was the Post Office, and it ran our phones as well as the mail.

Then lo! There was Mrs Thatcher, and it came about that she sold off all the family silver, including British Telecom, which was ours, but which we could now own shares in, if we paid, and if we did not, it was not ours any longer.

And the new owners did say, This name is too long, let it be named BT. And it was so.

And it did happen, that a BT broadband connection was so expensive that most people chose another path, though many paths did use the BT path to get to their online destination.

The Val did use the satellite TV provider Sky to connect to the internet, but Lo! it did use the BT telephone line. And the telephone line did bust, and this was just before the Weekend, which doth include the Lord's day, when ye engineers do not work except on huge overtime payments, and for ye Big Business only.

And so it came about that The Val's internet connection was dead. And being a creature addicted to ye internet, The Val did go to the O2 shop and did buy a Dongle, which did take 30 minutes to get to work (despite the ease with which ye salesman did say it would be set up) and it did work slowly. But it did work! And Lo! The Val did get online and read her emails, and she did post on her blog. And all was well with the world.

And The Val did say, "Who the hell called these blighters Dongles?"