Plug-and-play router is no such thing

Exalt me, adore me and shout "hosanna!" in my general direction, for I have successfully installed a wireless router, writes Peter Rhodes.

It was supplied by my internet-service provider and I was assured by the nice young man at the call centre in Bangalore that it was a dead-easy install known as plug-and-play.

It was no such thing. It was plug, fail to connect, scream obscenities at the screen and rip out your hair in big chunks.

But at last, after trying every possible permutation of codes and passwords and invoking the help of another nice young man in Bangalore, I was suddenly connected (although even the bloke in Bangalore wasn't entirely sure why).

And thus, triumphantly, I enter the 21st century, wirelessly interfacing with the known universe on my PC while downstairs, on her new laptop, my daughter Skypes her boyfriend in Germany.

And just a word for any spotty cyber-geek reading this and scoffing that it's all perfectly simple.

Let me make the point that my generation had to master real technology before any of this microchip nonsense came along.

So listen, laddies. When you can dismantle a brake drum, re-set the gap on a spark plug, plumb in a radiator, build a wall and install a wireless router, then you can scoff.