Checked the computer downstairs and all was well there. I did not think that its ethernet connection might have been a significant difference.
Poked the laptop around a bit more, to no avail. Phone up the almost invariably helpful IT help desk operated by BT. The young lady listens patiently to my story and then suggests that I reboot the router, something which I have done on various occasions in the past, but which I did not think to do on this occasion. After a few minutes, all was well again.
I associate to the stories from the IT help desk I used to know from the world of work about the large numbers of users who phoned in about problems with their printer, which it turned out that they had forgotten to switch on. Or who phoned in about problems with their PC, without having thought to try rebooting it.
I suppose the excuse is that when one is working away, rebooting is a bit of a nuisance. Everything has to be tidied up and closed down. Then after a pause opened up again. All very trying for the dynamic young executives. So they poke around, turning up all kinds of interesting symptoms, forgetting the basics. And then they phone the help desk to report all these interesting symptoms, with some help desk operatives being more helpful and sympathetic than others.
Furthermore, when on the next day I finally realised that my telephone was no longer talking to (Microsoft's) OneDrive, a knock-on from rebooting the router, I did think to reboot it, after which all was well. But even then, I had been thinking of going down to see the people at O2, bright and early this morning before the queue builds up. Thankfully, now unnecessary.
Later that same day it was the turn of the government website, some facet of reference 1. The task was to get a certified copy of a birth certificate, which I had assumed, without knowing, was something that one could organise online these days.
First irritation was that Google directs you to some commercial provider of birth certificates before it directs you to the horse's mouth.
Second irritation was that the relevant horse's mouth had not been brought to anything like the pitch of the online offering of the tax people - which I find very good, even if it does change slightly from year to year. Whereas here, I was slightly surprised at how quickly I got rather cross. With one irritation being that on the one hand they seemed to want you to supply a birth registration code, while on the other the inquire-about-birth-registration-code part of the system did not seem to work for births which took place less than a hundred years ago. With the birth in question being about half that.
I got there in the end and got a receipt for the birth certificate I wanted, now due to arrive in the post in a fortnight or so. But it was a while before I recovered my equanimity.
After which I wondered about all the many people of my generation who are not familiar with IT at all and about how hot and bothered they might get. Or is my problem that I am familiar with the IT of the wrong generation and have failed to move on?
PS 1: it turns out that the horse's mouth changed the same as the commercial provider would have charged for the service in question. But as a dyed-in-the-wool lefty, I still think that provision of vital event registration services is a matter for government, not for profit.
PS 2: I now know that 'Equanimity' is the name of a very fancy looking yacht, which Bing knows all about. From the margins of checking the spelling of the word. But why does a civilian pleasure craft need so much radar? Is it a drug baron special?
Reference 1: https://www.gov.uk/.
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