"Welcome to eircom net flat rate," carolled the letter from Eircom. "Dear Customer," it continued, "Thank you for your interest in net flat rate, the Internet access service that lets you surf the Internet for one easy-to-manage flat monthly fee" writes Kevin Myers.
Well, it's good to know that Eircom, our monopoly supplier of landline connections, thinks we really should be on the internet, and is determined to assist us in the process. There's nothing on earth like a kindly monopoly - apart, that is, from an unkindly one: the outcome is pretty much the same.
Last December, I had trouble getting onto the net - and then when on, had difficult staying on it. You know what I mean. You're just about to log on to the Naughty Nadia lesbian-frolic website promising all-girl explicit action involving Nadia, Simpering Suzie and assorted nude starlets, when suddenly the only thing going down is the internet connection. All right, so maybe the action actually involves the Folsom Prison Sex Offenders' Wing with latex face-masks and artful camerawork - but there's no way of finding out until you actually get there.
There could be two explanations for my inability to get online. One is that the Pope is worried about my immortal soul, and has got a Virtual Papal Nuncio on my internet link, cutting it when he thinks my interests might be getting too prurient. The other is that there's a problem on the landline connection provided by Eircom.
Previously when I'd reported problems on the line, Eircom insisted there was no fault in its system and the problem therefore must be in my telephone wiring at home. It cost me €200 to pay an engineer to show it wasn't. The fault was Eircom's. A lengthy one-way correspondence from me to Eircom then followed, in which the company did not even reply. Naturally, being a monopoly.
Finally, after threatening legal action, I was told that Eircom had reimbursed my €200, not with a cheque, but covertly, with an unannounced refund into my account. Which is not quite the same thing.
So now I was faced with an Eircom gavotte again, but I had no choice, because I was sure Nadia would refuse to start without me on line, and poor Suzie would be freezing her thingummies off standing there in the nip.
As it happens, the Eircom chap who took my call was perfectly courteous. He did a test - God knows how: probably licked his finger and stuck it out of the window - and said that my line seemed to be working, but he'd report it to the engineers.
A couple of days later, a cheery engineer rang me to say that there was a serious fault on the line, to which he had applied a temporary repair. He would do a more permanent job after the holiday season.
January, and the internet connection went down again (with poor Nadia and Suzie and the girls, presumably cold and hungry and hanging around starkers - what with Christmas and so on, I'd completely forgotten about them). So I rang Eircom again, and spoke to a very nice young man called Alan who said initially that there seemed to be no fault on the line. He would check with the engineer, and get back to me, which he did. Yes, he had gone through the file and found the report of a temporary repair. He'd get moving on the matter immediately.
An internetless week or so went by. Suzie got bored and eloped with a couple of identical she-twins from Burma. But Nadia - metaphorically stout girl that she is - continued to bide upon my arrival by internet, staring avidly towards the eastern horizon, like a shawled woman on the harbour side, awaiting her overdue trawlerman husband. And she waited in vain. No me arriving by internet.
Back to our trusty 1901 complaints number, which initially involves you having a conversation with a computer, which told me confidently that it had just checked my line - presumably by licking Bill Gates and sticking him out of the window - and there was nothing wrong with it. But finally I was put through to a human and rather unpleasant complaints person. I outlined the history of the case; he denied flatly the existence of the first temporary repair, and the phone-call from the engineer.
But it's there on my file, I cried. No it's not, he said, in the monopolist's you get-back-under-your-stone sneer. OK, I sighed, defeated. So, could you just get it checked out? Well, if we find there's no fault, we'll charge you, he continued. That's fine I said (and now, finally, we're getting to the point of this endless column); just as long as I can get onto the net.
No, he yodelled in odious triumph, that's not part of the deal. Eircom is not legally obliged to provide you with a connection that can link you to the internet - only to provide you with a line which can carry voice messages. Other electronic signals don't count. If you can't get on to the net, that's not our problem.
A week later, no improvement. I rang again: this time a curt Eircom she-person brusquely repeated the current Eircom mantra for AD 2005: Eircom is not legally obliged to provide its customers with an internet-compatible service. So of course, being a monopoly, it doesn't. "Welcome to Eircom net flat rate, but if you actually want to get onto the net, sorreeee." Meanwhile, in Folsom, Pervert 456a in his Naughty Nadia mask stands forlornly gazing eastwards, faithful unto death. . .