Can anyone help?

I am in the final stages of getting broadband connected. I was woken up this morning at an unholy hour by the arrival of my modem and connection package. It all started well, but my "Gillian will be stuck on dial up forever" destiny intervened.

My provider tells me they can't help me with the hiccup that occurred during installation but that it's really easy to fix. They can't advise me over the phone on it because it's something outside their capacity to do anything about. They say I must have a friend who knows the insides of a computer. Apparently my ethernet thingie is missing a few doodads :).

Apparently my network card isn't installed though it appears to exist. If I can get the network card working apparently I will magically be able to dump my dial up connection and get the marvellous broad band that has already started being billed. Except I have *no* idea how to install a network card or even how to check to see what brand one I have so I can download instructions from the internet (which is how I normally deal with things I can't do). The nice lady on the phone says I must have CD somewhere and I was forced to tell her how old my computer is, which makes the emphasis on 'somewhere' particularly strong.

Doing all this with flu has probably made it look harder than it is and the 22 month agony over Transact has probably made me gloomier than I ought to be. Either way, if anyone knows something about these things I would really, really appreciate a hand.

I'm going back to bed for a few hours because the flu demands it, but if you can help please ring me. Just laugh if I sound downtrodden. My phone number is (oddly) in the phone book.

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All solved! I am finally on broadband.

I rang a guru friend (who has said he will make me up a new computer next year if I can get the money together) and it turned out my computer had an ethernet card but it was turned to a setting that made it unrecognisable by my system. Or something. Ross fixed it and fixed a couple of other things and his father solved the cable issue and I am fully functional. Well, except the flu. I still have that.

I opened a new pack of coffee to celebrate. It's Sumatra Mandheling again.

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I know deadlines loom. I know that just because I now have broadband doesn't mean I should test my download speeds instead of finalising a nuisansical piece of bibliography. But how could I resist a brief detour when it means I get to read Lola Montez' advice on beauty.

She has a whole chapter for men on how to be fascinating. Montez says, very firmly, "To become a proficient in the art of fascinating, ... is not merely an accomplishment and a pastime but it is a duty which he may not neglect without incurring the gravest censure of all mankind." I do hope all men reading this have taken due note.

I do like this chapter. The earlier bits are fonts of good advice. She tells us that doing exercise and not eating greasy food and avoiding patent medicines are handy routes to womanly beauty, and Montez gives recipes for everything from making your hands lily-white to helping your bosom grow bigger (*most* of these recipes are safe and sane, but not all) but this final chapter is just a trifle sarcastic.

What's really curious is that as I read it I became certain we had met some of the same men. Not that any of my blogfriends would follow any of her fifty guidelines. Or would you? Should I post a few over the next few days and find out if you have an immediate rapport with them?