I had this happen on the Friday evening of Bank Hols weekend - after calling Telewest they told me it would be off for 4 days (grrr....). Nothing ever appeared on the status page (kept asking friends to check), and after losing patience from 16hrs offline I called again and they did something following which it came back on about half hour later.
It might be worth checking what work is going on in your area - apparently the initial problem with mine was local roadworks, followed by some other fault (they were pretty vague and it sounded like they really didn't know).
No internet is like losing my right arm
