I had a phone call tonight just as I was sitting down after tea. 

It was a bank, a courtesy call they said. When they had finished asking if I needed a new insurance quote I said, 'you must get this all the time, but really it's not all that 'courteous' to call people up at home when they've just got in from work to try to sell them something.'

See what a cynic I am.  Who knows, perhaps he was just about to say, 'well, now we've got that out of the way, let's get to the important stuff - how's your family?' I never found out because a few seconds later I put the phone down.

Then it rang again. It was for my wife.  I know it's wrong, but when they said they were from a bank, I answered on her behalf. 'Is something wrong?' I said, 'or is this a courtesy call? Because she's reading our children a story' - and I was telling the truth!

'We just wanted to talk about some of our services and make sure she's happy with her accounts'.

'Why does this keep happening?' I said, 'we're getting so many of these calls lately, we really don't want them.'

Water off a duck's back. 'When is a good time to speak to your wife?' she said.

'Not in the evenings.' I said, 'and not in the day, because she won't be here. Leave a message and she can call you if she needs anything.'

'Our system doesn't allow us to leave messages sir. If we get no reply you stay on the list and we call again later, there's nothing we can do to stop it.'

That's when Victor Meldrew walked into the room, pushed me out of the way and took over my brain. 'But you're a multi million pound organisation, you should be able to do anything you want! Just tell whoever you have to tell to take us off your list!'

'Your wife would have to call us or write to us to request that she is removed from our marketing sir.'

 'Hold on.' I said. 'So you've phoned us and wasted our time, and when I ask you to stop doing that you say you can't, and then you say that if I want to stop you phoning me and wasting my time, I have to spend time phoning someone else to ask them to tell you to stop phoning me? That's a circus!'

'I'm sorry sir, I'm just doing my job.'

I came back to my senses. 

'I know, I know,' I said, 'they've got us locked in this game and neither of us can get out, can we?'

'I'm sorry sir?'

'It's OK... talk to you tomorrow.'