To trace the 'fault', Hole #1 was dug three inches too far to the left - I could just see the joint in the cable, and could have dug it out with my hands... but no, it had to be filled in! Then the next day Hole #2 was dug - apparently, each hole costs BT £500-600, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the contractors wanted to do it this way rather than just expanding the original hole by a few inches.
Anyway, none of this worked - Engineer #4 swapped a couple of contacts in the green box at the end of the road and everything's been fine since.
Except: my first bill was a huge shock - I hadn't realised the amount of data I was using, getting on for 200G when I had chosen the 40G cap, plus nearly £100 for phone calls (basically, her daily chats with Mum...)

I rang BT this morning and was told: 'Never mind, Sir, we're just advising you of your Usage, you're not capped in any way' Me:'So why bother telling me, if it's unlimited?' No reply to that... (and another thing, you have to go through all the 'options' before getting through to a human, and you have to dial in your account number. The first question, when you do finally speak to someone is: 'What's your account number?' oy... (to be fair, banks do the same thing) But I guess somebody, somewhere, is paying for all this unnecessary duplication. Oh wait, I think I know who that might be

Sorry to ramble on, mol2, but when you eventually get your connection, your troubles have probably only just started

Hey, Caput sterci, Quando podeces te regi eorum fecerunt? -- Fac ut vivas!