My friendly ‘service manager’ was overcome with apology today – apparently, the power lead for my laptop will be sent ‘as soon as one can be found’, and a meeting will be held to discuss the customer service I’ve received. Of course it will.

23 days, no usable laptop. Go Team HP!

Good news and bad, today.

A courier has dropped off my laptop this afternoon – result! However, they have failed to drop off the charger, so I can’t actually plug the laptop in to see whether or not it is working. So I have no idea whether it’s been successfully fixed or not.

It’s actually turning out quite comedic – a next-day on-site support package from a leading computer manufacturer taking four unsuccessful home visits and the best part of two weeks away from home to fix a laptop, then failing to return the power supply. Thank goodness my life will never depend on a repair from HP… Oh, wait…

I’ve never considered Blair to be one of the greatest orators to have occupied Number 10, but maybe I’ve underestimated him. It’s quite impressive to see him give a full statement about leaving office without using the word ‘resign’. Or even ‘quit’ or ‘leave’. The nearest thing he’s given to a soundbite is

The next party conference in a couple of weeks will be my last party conference as party leader.

He’s even managed to rush the sentence so much that it can’t realistically be used as a soundbite. That’s pretty impressive, and very well done. Is this this the first speech Tony’s done where he’s consciously avoided the soundbite?

Quite honestly, though, I don’t think it matters. I think even the smallest of the Labour minnows will not be put off from making their views on his Premiership clear just because he says it’s bad, and even the super-loyal MPs trotted out across every network immediately after the speech to scare them a little more won’t make them feel threatened.

Mr Blair’s statement has put a sticking plaster over his gaping wounds, the question is merely how long it will last. It won’t last seven or eight months. It only needs one comment from one MP, one letter, or one more resignations to painfully tear the sticking plaster away, and it’s just too tempting.

It was a valiant effort, though, and I’m rather impressed. Just not impressed enough to want him to stay.

Three weeks, now. No contact from HP today, and (of course) no laptop, despite the promises given on Monday.

Another update tomorrow, no doubt. Frankly, even in my least optimistic moments, I didn’t expect the repair to take this long, and I’m starting to get fed up with it clogging up the blog. But, amusingly, searching Google for HP Support Blog now has this site as the top result – just above, erm, HP’s support blog. If nothing else, that’s an achievement, and should help potential consumers to realise that their overpriced extended support warranties really do not seem to deliver.

There’s always been something of Greek tragedy about the Tony Blair story. He unites the party and the country, presenting himself as a down-to-Earth everyman with the power to put right the wrongs of the Tories, but is ultimately corrupted by addictive power, and now drives apart the very party he united through his desperate bid to stay on at the top.

There are now several letters circulating the Parliamentary Labour Party, some calling for Tony to resign, others calling for him to stay on. Could there be any more fundamental a division in the party?

His allies say he’ll be gone within a year, but really, it no longer matters. The party’s in turmoil, and there’s no way they will all unite happily around Gordon Brown – party unrest can’t be settled merely with a change of leader. Ian Westbrook reckons the party will be destroyed if Tony goes on for another year – I think it’s verging on that point already.

Whenever Tony goes, and whether it’s with his preposterous ‘Farewell tour‘ or not, it will be undignified, with him appearing to have been pushed rather than jumping. Iain Dale, who knows far more about such things than I, thinks the memo about the tour was leaked on purpose. If it was, it shows how poor the Number 10 Press Office has become at judging the news cycle – a ridiculous story about a big-in-his-boots Prime Minister planning to resign merely makes people call for him to do it right now.

Perhaps a quote from here sums it all up best:

What was a ‘lame duck’ Premiership has just become a ‘dead duck’ Premiership

Quack.

Twenty days ago, I reported a fault on an HP laptop covered by an expensive next-day on-site service extended warranty. It still hasn’t been fixed. After four unsuccesful attempts to fix it on-site, the laptop was taken away to be fixed. It’s been away for eleven days, now. It was due back either today or tomorrow. It’s not here today, so I’m guessing it should be tomorrow.

We’ll see.

I’m back at medical school from today, so my ongoing HP repair is being handled by the rest of my family back home. I’m here with another laptop, since I have cases, presentations, and an e-portfolio, all of which require a computer – exactly the reason I paid for ‘Next Day’ HP support. 19 days later, I’m still waiting for a result.

Mum took a phone call today, informing me that ICM Computers were returning the laptop to HP for their attention. Presumably the parts they ordered last Wednesday didn’t fix the problem, but I’m not sure what’s happened since then. Apparently, the manager my mum spoke to commented that the laptop wasn’t in great condition, and had been bashed about a bit. There seems little to say about this, other than given that last time I saw the laptop, it was completely unfunctional (not to mention the disputed damage catalogued here), it would appear to have been ‘bashed about’ more in the last 19 days than previously.

The man said that my laptop would probably be back tomorrow or Wednesday. Because I’m back at uni, there’s some difficulty at getting a message about the return of the laptop through, because I’m obviously not available during office hours. But I think we’ve sorted a way round that. We’ll see.

All-in-all, it (hopefully) looks like this might finally be drawing to a close. But I’ve thought that before.

I’m waking up this morning to the news that the ‘Crocodile Hunter’, Steve Irwin, has been killed in an accident whilst filming his latest documentary.  He died about six hours ago after a stingray attack to the chest in the Batt Reef of the Low Isles, near Cairns in Australia.  The Sydney Morning Herald has full details.

This is really quite a shock.  I think we all knew that what Steve did in his documentaries was almost ludicrously dangerous, but I don’t think anyone ever expected him to die.  In the modern age of special effects and stuntmen, perhaps the dangers people put themselves through for their art are never truly recognised.  The bitter irony is that few people are killed by stingrays – the life of a naturalist famed for working with the most dangerous of animals has been ended by a common, often harmless creature.

Steve leaves behind wife Terri, daughter Bindi (8), and son Bob (2).  My thoughts are with them this morning.

The day before my fourth year begins, here’s some less than inspirational, but still highly recommended reading from GP blogger, Dr John Crippen: Should Sammy go to medical school?  The comments are well worth flicking through, too.

This isn’t the most riveting of posts, but I consider it to be quite important – even if, on days like these, I really wish I had a suitably qualified Grauniad-style independent editor to refer things to!

First of all, lawyers from The National Lottery have been in touch to insist that I remove their copyrighted logo from a post from a couple of months ago. I think I was probably on the right side of the law, having published in a reporting context something which was (or so it appeared) presented by The National Lottery. Their lawyers argue that the banner was a fake, and defamatory to their client. Unfortunately, I neglected to keep details of the original site to refer them to in order to confirm that the banner wasn’t faked, and so I complied with their request and removed the logo from the server, and replaced it with a description.

Next up, an ethical question from an independent party relating to my HP Support Blog: Why had I chosen to name individuals providing service, when my complaints were specifically with those individuals. That’s a fair comment, and there’s probably a potential for libel if the tone of the post is considered defamatory to the identified individual, so I’ve removed all references to names. That has meant editing a couple of comments, including one by an anonymous party, which I’m not overly comfortable in doing. However, I’ve clearly marked the changes in the comments, and pinged all of the edited posts. They are: Friday’s update, Monday’s update, Tuesday’s update, One week on, Day 13, and Day 14. The comments in question are here and here. For further clarification, I have also published this post on the HP Support Blog.

Finally, this post. Is it disrespectful and unfair? I think not. I have form on the issue of discussing religion: Witness this and this. I do not consider it part of my aim on this blog to protect religion, and certinaly not be protect one above another. Instead, I aim to be even-handed, and actually reflect my own views (this is, after all, a personal blog). If that means criticising actions of religious leaders that I find unacceptable, I shall do it, just as I would criticise the actions of any other community leaders. I’m not omnipotent, and hence can’t report every evil or every good performed by every relgious person – but I do blog the ones which catch my eye. Therefore, the post stands unedited.

As ever, you can complain about posts either publically via the commenting system, or privately via one of several methods: Email me, SMS or MMS “simon” followed by your message to 60300, leave me a voicemail on 0845 638 1916, or fax me on 0845 638 1918. Charges of phone calls and text messages appear along with full details of all contact methods in the site guide.