Offline

I used to commute into London by train.  I could have driven but it would have involved getting up more than an hour earlier and parking in London was expensive (and that was in the days before congestion charging added to the bill).  So every morning I arrived at Harpenden station in time for the 07:22 train to London.

Most mornings the train was late – I could probably count on the fingers of one finger the times it was on time – but usually only by a few minutes.  Allowing for further delays along the way I usually got to work sometime between 08:30 and 08:45.

Except that some mornings it was much more seriously delayed.  “Leaves on the line”, “the wrong kind of snow”, “points failure in outer Mongolia”, “train driver abducted by aliens”, the excuses were repeated continuously over the barely-intelligible announcements system.  We got as bored listening to them as doubtless did the poor guy who was paid to keep repeating them.  Nobody, it seems, knew when the problem would be fixed.  There was no estimate available for when our train would arrive and depart.

And to this day I remember that horrendous, deep-gut feeling of utter powerless.  There was no action I could take.  By that time in the morning if I were to give up, get into my car and attempt to drive in I would be unlikely to arrive at my desk before lunchtime.  I had meetings to attend, emails to receive and respond to, papers to read and write, but I could do none of these because of a fire in Basingstoke, or some such, and – most frustrating of all – nobody could tell me how long I would be waiting there.

So the only thing I could do was to stand there and wait, trying to resist the temptation to scream in frustration and kick the timetable board, hoping that somebody would fix whatever problem it was that was delaying our train.  Even if it wasn’t raining (100 commuters – 5mx4m waiting room) I remember those times as some of the most miserable of my life.

I was reminded of them this morning by today’s island-wide Internet failure.

I have, on my PC, 10 emails waiting to be sent, some urgent.  I have things I want – need - to do online.  I can do none of this.  I can’t even check Facebook to see what my friends had for breakfast and who has praised Trump for his masterly handling of the Covid-19 crisis.  I am sat here waiting for somebody to identify and fix the problem and reconnect St Helena to the outside world and I can do absolutely nothing to help make that happen.

On the bright side, I can at least make myself a cup of tea while I’m waiting, and I’m not getting wet or snowed-on, but the frustration at my powerless to improve my situation remains.

If St Helena does have to go on Lockdown due to Covid-19 I fear that our Internet system will not be able to provide the lifeline that has helped every other country to survive.  How will we cope?