>Many years ago I worked for a large UK organisation that had a payroll process that ran overnight on mainframe computers around the country. (this was pre PC) supported by staff in London offices. The support team routinely gave the number of the pub round the corner to be used if there was a problem.

We once had a power out in the whole downtown, and the house where our VAX was lay next to the main street. All the good places were lined up in a similar street on the other side of main, i.e. two blocks away.

We just called from each café (but they'd be called pubs - we didn't drink any coffee :) and got the message "it's booting now" somewhere around the fourth.