The phone rings. You’re in the middle of cooking dinner. Should you answer it? Can it wait?…………..No. You turn down the gas, mutter expletives, and jog to the phone. By the time you reach it there’s been at least 10 rings. You pick it up just in time. Or do you? You put the phone to your ear and…….silence.

It’s one of the fucking automated dialling systems. You remember…..you entered your phone number into a website survey months ago. And now every Tom, Dick and Harry has got it. Or is it Tom, Dick and Harry? Recently it’s been Kevin or Sharon or Michael calling.

And they all sound so far away with foreign accents.