We awoke this morning to find that our internet connection was offline.  I did a range of diagnostic tests and came to the conclusion that the problem was with the fibre network outside our house, rather than with anything on the inside.  

We get our broadband from EE. This is a re-badging of BT's service, and it's cheaper than BT if you happen to have any EE SIMs in any of your devices, because then they can call it a package and give you a multi-service discount.  Anyway, I sent them a text, they called me back very promptly, we went through some more diagnostics and they agreed that an engineer needed to come out, and could do so tomorrow.

It was only later that I thought I might walk around the outside of the house and just see if there was any obvious damage to the fibre.  And I discovered that some local security consultant, probably with a bushy tail, sharp teeth and a fondness for nuts, had decided to secure our network by making it properly air-gapped from the outside world.

Mmm.  I can't imagine that two inches of optical cable made for a very tasty meal...  though perhaps he read Dennis Burkitt and is a great believer in the importance of dietary fibre.