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It's Armageddon! Also known as "Facebook is down"...

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by Ashley Morrison

If, like me, you have moved or are thinking of moving to the country, you’re taking a perilous risk. It doesn’t matter if you’re pretty much bang on one of the main corridors into London or not (the Cambridge – Liverpool Street corridor, in my case); the fact is, you’re playing with fire.

Because there’s no 4G.

Imagine. Not only is there no 4G, but a spokesman for EE also recently said in the Saffron Walden Reporter that, for us poor provincial types, there were also no immediate plans to get 4G out here in the back of beyond either.

I kid you not. We will not, I repeat NOT be able to watch films on our phones as smoothly as butter running out of a hot frying pan like Kevin Bacon does with that “no really, my skin really is that naturally shiny and tight” face of his.

In fact – and you won’t believe this – but the other day, I had no 3G signal either! It was replaced with that dreaded “E” symbol at the top of my iPhone (no, I have no idea what that stands for either) and latterly “GPRS”. <Sideways sad face>

The anguish that these letters inflict is, for many, intolerable. I can only think of one service-related event that caused more panic amongst the Great Unconnected:

It was the day that Facebook went down.

This has actually happened twice over the last few months, for anything between 20 minutes and an hour, depending on which papers you read and where you are in the world. And the fallout was devastating. Upon reading the distressing message “‘Sorry, something went wrong. We’re working on getting this fixed as soon as we can,” people in their droves were calling the emergency services to ask what was being done about it. Doubtless these were the same people that rang 999 to say that they couldn’t get through to the X Factor voting lines to vote for Rhydian.

The more sophisticated complainants simply took to other forms of social media to bemoan the loss of their best friend. Their best friend being Facebook, of course – not their best friend ON Facebook. Twitter was awash with a mixture of furious and gleeful comments, with the hashtag #facebookdown trending within minutes.

Some, of course, were deliberately sarcastic, which I find reassuring:

@tomwarren: The best thing about Facebook being down is not being able to see your friends Ice Bucket Challenge videos.

And even companies were jumping on the bandwagon to promote their services, with one Australian phone company saying:

Facebook is down, but it's ok. There's still texting. Let's hug.

But my hat comes off to @guyism, who seems to have just nailed what most people seem to use Facebook for: liking funny pictures and videos.

FACEBOOK IS DOWN. I REPEAT, FACEBOOK IS DOWN, THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Keep calm and look at this dog in a bow tie.

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So, no, you may not always have Facebook for every second of the day, but please do spare a thought for us out here in darkest Essex. After all, even if we did have Facebook for every second of the day, the chances of our being able to watch that cat being whizzed around by the ceiling fan all in one seamless sitting are virtually nil.

by Ashley Morrison

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