I must be a distant cousin of Nick then.
One Saturdayat the end of June our phone went dead, reported it the same day from my Mums phone. (Why do they always ask if you are ringing from the number !) Found out later that night that a couple of neighbours & the pub next door were also 'off'. Everybody else was back on Monday morning. After several telephone calls I mentioned the magic c word - compensation. I was then told that they had to dig up the cables to get us put back on, when I asked why as this didn't have to be done to get everyone else back on, they were unable to tell me. The following day 2 men with a mini-digger turned up & dug a hole about 1 ft square (with a shovel), filled it in & dissappeared again. By this time nealy a week had passed. I telephoned again & actually got someone who spoke English as his first language & who actually telephoned back when he said he would - be still my beating heart. We had Open Reach men all over the place for the next week, still unable to sort out the problem. Finally exactly 2 weeks after the fault was reported, a little Asian man arrived & asked what the problem was,he couldn't believe we'd been out for so long. He'd worked for Bt for 40 years & was just coming up to retirement, he said the company was falling apart. Anyway, he asked if he could come in and test the home phone, went out & checked the junction box acroos the road climbed the telegraph pole & hey presto 5 minutes later we were up & running. Aparently our cable had not been re-connected to the terminal when the repairs were first carried out.