Hmmm,
I just got back online yesterday since going offline on Tuesday evening, when lightning struck about ~200m away from my house, it affected a telegraph pole which of course was the telecoms to my house. The lightning also thought it would be a good idea to ground itself through *MY* modem which was rather interesting :-) as when I came and sat down near the computer I noticed that it was in two rather distinctive parts, and all the magic smoke that made it work had escaped!
Anyway after counting the cost (luckily I am insured) It cost me 2 modems, two motherboards (it blew a serial port and parallel port in both!), two telephone handsets and a fan heater! (I don't knowhow it got the last but it appeared to jump through a powered phone and back into the electric supply in the house).
Anyway when I get the photos developed I will put them online, all the phone sockets in the house were blown and the wet string that connected us to the telegraph pole was also hosed as the cable had burst in 3 seperate places!
BTW the BT engineer also told me that you can now use the BT diagnosis phone no. to work out how far away you are from the exchange, so you can work out if you will be able to get ADSL.
You will get warned that you have to be authorised to do this but it never gets checked so don't worry. To get this info dial 17070 then (dial) 3 (you have to listen to this message) then dial 1 and finally 2
Adam