What we have here is a failure to communicate

It has been noted before now that these treks of ours - these odysseys; these voyages; these perambulatory eccentrips - are something of an ideological contradiction. We eschew all forms of modern transport but rely on a wide variety of 21st century technology to support us in doing so. Well, we make no apology for it. After all, what could be more traditional than a stroll through the countryside accompanied by a 30-gigabyte hard disk digital audio player connected to a portable active speaker system, guided by a Global Positioning System satellite receiver connected by Bluetooth link to a PDA running Windows Mobile, simultaneously tracked by a second GPS satelite receiver connected via a GPRS uplink to technicians in Durham university and plotted in real time on the World Wide Web, reporting on our progress using a keyboard connected by an infra-red beam to a PDA, which uses a Bluetooth link to a GPRS modem to send data and pictures via an e-mail gateway to our blog provider, combined with a second mobile phone sending updates to an SMS gateway and thence to the blog, and carrying a portable DVD player and several discs to while away the long, cold evenings? Exactly. We imagine you've all done the same thing.

Only this time it's nearly all stopped working. The first inkling that all was not as it should be was before we even set off, when we discovered that our "hotline" phone was completely functional unless you wanted it to make a sound of any kind. Not terribly helpful as a telephone then.

Next was the comment left anonymously on our blog simply asking "Where are the pictures supposed to be appearing?!" Indeed, it appeared that not a single photo had been posted, despite our using a Flickr service especially designed to do just that. Unable to fathom why, we've taken the Argument From Ignorance approach and assumed that someone just has something against us. Anyway, we quickly found a solution to that. His name's John.

Next, our internet tracking system stopped working for an entire day (see earlier post). That has now been put down to the fact that most of Leicestershire has rubbish mobile reception.

Next, the big one: on a roadside outside Corby (where else?) Ewan knelt on and thereby resolutely smashed the Pocket PC that has been the source of our navigatory prowess as well as our blogging panache. Yes, the poor old thing, on its last legs already, was unceremoniously dispached from the world of function.

But at least we could still send blog updates by text message. The marvellous little service whereby we send a text and it appears as a blog post a moment later. You may remember it from such gems as "We've got a Yorkie," and who could forget the classic "Selby does a marvellous curry"?

Well, no. A couple of days ago we discovered that since about day two, none of those has got through either. The reason? Two days into our walk, the SMS Country service spontaneously changed to become only available to those in India. No, really. So it turns out that you had no idea that we'd been answering al your comments, and even composing poetry, as we walked. Not a word of it.

Anyway, the real purpose of this post is to announce that it all now works again! Without going into too much detail, let's just say that Curry's in Kettering came to the rescue, and we are now once more entirely blogtastic and hotlineal. And we'll start answering your comments... Again.