Communication Breakdown

Our home is in sight of the Moviestar antenna on top of Mojácar’s hill, yet none of our mobile phones work inside the house. Some friend tells me that this is because we live in a Faraday Cage (which is stupid). Nevertheless, whatever the reason, and I’m thinking ghosts, coverage drops down to nothing once inside the house, which causes me all kinds of crackingly amusing little problems as the result of not knowing that someone has just rung, and consequently either missing a call or having to answer them back at a future and sometimes less useful time. The phone I have will, if I get the buttons pressed in the right order, allow me to hear a message but will not retain the number of the caller so, if I don’t write it down on the first instance, it’ll probably be lost. I need to wear glasses to read the little dial on my phone, which takes pictures, movies, emails, games and other obscure services and yet is designed for eagle-eyed boy scouts and won’t work in any meaningful way inside our house.
So, I go outside to dial. This sometimes doesn’t work either and a few people have complained about me walking down the street (of a very quiet unlit neighbourhood I might add) in my underwear while swearing at my mobile phone.
Also, I can climb onto the roof and this sometimes works and, of course, othertimes doesn’t. No, I’m not going to dress to phone – not until I buy one of those Ipods with the little camera in it.
So anyway, I have had three calls in the last couple of days. They were all received while both my useless phone and I were in residence and were therefore not answered. These calls, as the recorded messages leave me to believe, are from a friend who wants to meet me on Friday for dinner. Now, the last call included the information that the local house-phone where my friend is staying was down but that not to worry because the cell-phone number was such and such. That’s right. A ‘cell-phone’. I would have to call an American mobile number just to confirm a chicken n chip night out which was going to cost less than the phone-call itself. So, biting the bullet, I went outside with a pen and my glasses and punched in the one two three messages with the irritating voice (‘you have received a call today, at three thirty five and a half…’) to hear the message again and write down the number. But as usual, and I’ve climbed a tree for this, no coverage at all.
My webpage is bust today as well. I write a blog about Spain and have some interesting points about Zapatero’s summation of his six-month presidency of the European Union and the attack against him delivered by Marta Andreasen (see here) but the page is down. Perhaps Moviestar has bought my Russian server.
God, I hope not.