Constantly Furious

Constantly Furious recently became the owner of a brand spankin' new Netbook. While it has the processing power of a ZX Spectrum, and a screen slightly smaller than a postage stamp , it is very handy for email and surfin' the internet.  This can even be done 'on the move' as they say in the ads, since the beast has a tiny SIM card somewhere deep in its guts, courtesy of Vodafone.

However, even when on the road, wind in the hair, it's seldom possible to stray too far from Nanny. After all, we're all a little bit silly, aren't we? We don't really know the difference between right and wrong, do we?

When clicking on a bookmark for a site CF visits regularly, he was astonished and infuriated to be presented with this:

What? What the fuck? "Content Control is in place"? The little Vodafone SIM card has decided that certain sites cannot be accessed? Censorship by a tiny piece of electronic circuitry?

Let’s get this straight: Vodafone have sat down and come up with a big list of sites that - tut, tut - we really shouldn't be visiting. Then they have programmed their systems so that - because we can't be trusted, because we're so very naughty - we can't access these sites.

Dear God.

CF doesn't work for you, you corporate cretins. You're not CF's mummy either. You are being paid to provide a fucking service here, not to nanny us round the internet.

What next, Vodafone? Will you prevent us from ringing certain 'phone numbers? The ones for people you don't approve of? Will you not pass on text messages that you don't think are quite decent?

Oh, but we can remove the censorship, says the screen. All (all?) we have to do to get this bar, this massively fucking impudent intrusion, lifted is to ring Vodafone up (assuming we're over "18 or over" of course - got to protect the chiiiiiildrennn).

Have you ever, Vodafone, in an idle moment, tried to ring one of your own help lines? Just as an experiment? If you had, you would realise that it is an ordeal of fucking gigantic proportions. Sitting in some fucking queue, listening to some infuriating pop music, interspersed with assurances that "Your call is important". Yes, it fucking is. To the poor bloody caller. Just not to you, apparently, you bastards.

CF really can't see a time, in his busy diary, when he'll have either the time or the patience to sit listening to Enya over a tinny phone line for 45 minutes. So the internet will have to remain locked.

But what the hell, you're asking, was CF trying to access? Was he trying to illegally download music, even though Mandy says that's naughty? Was he perusing the sort of vile porn would make even Obo' the Clown feel ill? Was he going to visit an extremist 'hate' site? Just what was it that Vodafone was saving him from?

It was Paddy Power, the online betting site. Go on, click the link. Unless you too are connecting via Vodafone, in which case, don't you dare click the link. Vodafone don't want you going there - you might end up .. betting. Ugh! What do you think you are? An adult? No, best you toddle over to the BBC website, see what's going on with Strictly Come Dancing.

How has this come to pass, for fuck's sake? CF was using his own browser, on his own laptop, over a connection that he was fucking well paying for, and these jumped up fuckwits decided he couldn't be permitted to see a mainstream website.

What the fuck have we come to?


.