OMG The Cloud sucks

Internet access runs about $9/hr from coffee houses. Hoping to save some money, I bought a £35 ($50) month-long pass to The Cloud, which claims to be the largest public network of wifi access in Europe.

I have just spent thirty minutes trying to connect at the Anchor Pub in Cambridge -- my browser crashing or encountering data decryption errors -- only to be instructed that my account is invalid. Could it be that the voucher I contracted at the British Library in London is not valid at Cambridge?

I'm in no way new to wifi access. I live among the technical wizards of Silicon Valley in San Francisco for most of the year, where some dozen freewifi zones exist in a ten-minute walk from my house.

I'm faintly scandalized. They offer phone numbers and street addresses to customers who are having problems connecting (whooppee!), where the nearest human support looks like the bartender.

Silly country.

Oh, "but our mobile phone system is *streets* ahead of yours!!"