It may be a trans atlantic issue possibly caused by the weather we are having here in the UK ATM.
It will be interesting to see if anyone in the UK reports similar problems.
Although the server farms are weather proof, there have been physical exchange and power supply issues at some UK ISP's over the last couple of days.
This _could_ account for the timeout on a longer routing.
I'm catching up on my annual leave (at home) ATM but got called in to work today because of issues on our system relating to poor internet connectivity, it turned out to be weather related, offsite.
We'll keep an eye on things.
CT