Problems with Pipex continue, I am afraid to say. I was originally with Toucan, who were then absorbed by Pipex and in turn by Tiscali. My broadband connection went down at Easter. No ADSL signal. Several (very expensive) telephone calls to the helpline resulted in a technician failing to call round one evening and then a week later calling round ...

Things can get a lot worse yet. We might feel a bit foolish about putting our money in Icesave now with the benefit of hindsight, but we were all taken in by the promised compensation scheme. That scheme was designed for individual banks going under, not a major collapse of the whole system. The depositor scheme will find it difficult to cover our ...