Bloody computers

Bloody, bloody emails! How to configure your existing email into Outlook and change your outgoing host to your new SMTP – anyone? I call my new broadband provider – Virgin – and am put on hold. Finally, when I am put through to ‘Derek’, I am cut off. I call again, temper rising. This time I get through to a bored sounding ‘David’, who mutters that I need to put smtp.ntlworld.com – which I do, and then nothing works. Outlook behaves as if I have just poured poison into its innards. I do what all good technical help people do, and wiggle the wires, and then press restart. Outlook glares at me. I call Virgin, again.

‘Oh, you tried to connect to ntl when you are blueyonder,’ chuckled ‘Neil’ at the end of the phone. Now, how on earth am I supposed to know the damn difference? But Neil was a delightful chap, telling me I could host my website and email by another way entirely. I didn’t understand him but he probably knew that and it didn’t worry either of us.

All now appears to be working fine, except last night’s tussle with Messenger. Apparently an old one I wanted to delete was running in the background, so I tried to delete it, only to succeed in deleting Internet Explorer. I really should go back to the days of pen and paper.

Oh, and yesterday I spent far too long searching for local London magazines. Y’see – I write for one already, and the idea I have is such a good one that it could easily be extended to other local mags, that is, if I can find the buggers. Now I have always prided myself on my ability to leap, skim and dive into the Internet to extract what I need. Yet yesterday I was like a splashy kid scared to let go of its water wings. So far I have:

North London
Angel -- North -- N16 -- Northwest

West London
Grove -- The Hill -- Westside -- Matchbox -- The Resident

South London
Rise -- Southwest -- Living South

East London
?

Yet I do not have contact details for any except Grove, Matchbox and Angel, except the latter's email came back with a message undeliverable. The Resident’s phone number was out of order. And who knows what folk in the East read – perhaps they don’t.

Sigh – all I need is a few magazines to write for each month that ‘pay’ (golden word, that) and then at least I have a few pounds coming in, as opposed to me opening the window and emptying my purse into thin air every day.