Mudcat has had a lot of problems this year and there has been a lot of down time. Matters seem to be improving though. Recently I have experienced periods not so much of downtime but of very slow responses

gargoyle is probably giving his answers as his login times are different to yours. Mudcat does seem to need frequent reboots and much seems to depend on when Max (PA US) is around to perform this. Although the site is running very quickly from here at the moment, UK morning, say 8-9am, is typically a bad time.