Crash and burn

At work today with no email, no access to most of my work, and no real idea when the system will be back up again.

Bollocks.

Got in after a slow and tiresome, windswept and rainy drive across Salisbury Plain (stuck behind a fucking convoy of tank transporters for much of it) to be greeted by an office full of glum faces and blank screens. More so than normal for a Monday morning, I mean.

About half an hour ago (4 hours after most people arrived at work) there was an announcement on the building Tannoy that "the service is down". This was greeted by ironic cheers and a round of applause, which made me laugh. Rumour control means that we now know that the server "blew up" after it was switched on, that many of our sites are affected and that the engineers are working on it. Using their feet, I assume, useless bleeding chimps that they are.

My money's on getting email back by lunchtime tomorrow at the earliest. So the office is emptying as more and more people decide to head home. Presumably to do something more useful than stare at the internet all day, wishing they could email people.

The site here is covered in fallen branches - loads of the big horse chestnut trees seem to have suffered badly in the storm last night. A very dour security guard was dragging the branches off the road into a heap. I could almost hear him thinking "This isn't in my fucking job description" as I drove past him.

While I think about it, and following the question on Mr Farty's blog about comments, does the fact that comments moderation is switched on for this site bother anyone?

I set it up that way because:

a) I refuse to have anyone write comments that might be far more amusing than my blog, and it's my site and I am the ubergruppenbloggenovermeister, so there

b) I don't want anything untoward being posted that I might not spot quickly enough

c) It makes me feel special having to moderate comments

So. If the moderation thing doesn't put you off too much, feel free to share your views. And I guess if there are no comments that is an answer in itself.

If you see what I mean.

The burn still hurts, by the way.