End this Wi-Fi zone rip-off

REMEMBER THAT BIT in the film Network when the great Peter Finch declares: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Well, that's me, that is.

Finch had a beef with being fired and his sense that the world was populated almost exclusively by bullsh*tters. Plus ca change, you might say, especially if you're French.

Anyhow, it's a gorgeous day in London's red and tranquil labyrinth and I really should be wearing my hat at a jaunty angle and showing off the new humbug-striped blazer while whistling one of Cole Porter's finest, but what has gone and made me mad as hell is the price of ad-hoc WiFi access in the UK, and I daresay, in your country too.

The Jurys Inn in Manchester is staffed by wonderful people but the hotel chain's bosses have decided it's OK to stiff guests for £5 an hour internet access. I should know, I stumped up for it yesterday. Stuck at the railway station for half an hour gave your correspondent the usual rope-a-dope services from BT, The Cloud, T-Mobile et al. The price is bad enough but the forms and the passwords are a killer.

This is wrong, wrong, wrong. It has more wrongs than a similar word in the Hong Kong phone book. It's wrong underlined, in a fancy font and with animated graphics. It's really very wrong indeed.

It's particularly wrong in London with its grandiloquent claims to be a world-class city. Mayor Ken, you already stiff visitors arriving by air by pretending our airports are in London and then stiff them again with rip-off trains. Why not give the suckers an even break and fit the old place up with free wireless internet? A lot of us need it to do our jobs and you could easily get the whole thing sponsored. We'll even vote for you in the absence of a half-decent alternative, you mad old newt-fancier.

It's time for the little man to speak up. Homo laptopus with his creased suit and Excel-obsessed boss that never takes a holiday has just stepped off the sweltering Tube and stood on a vomited kebab in fetid Oxford Street. He just wants to do his job and he needs wireless to do it. Then he can go home and kiss the wife, hug the kids and persuade himself, for a couple of precious days, that Monday will never show up.

I call on all readers - and even non-readers - to say hell, no, £5 Wi-Fi, we're mad as hell and we're not going to take this anymore. Send through your stories of internet rip-off charges and the campaign, nay revolution, can begin. Apes, ivory and peacocks even unto half my kingdom for the best revolutionary email. µ