British Gas has admitted that its customer service performance is "not in a place where we want it to be". Thousands of its customers, meanwhile, are definitely in a place where they do not want to be: sitting with a phone stuck to their ear, listening to tinny music and endless assurances that help is on its way.

Yet firms are constantly insisting that "we are experiencing an unusually high volume of calls at the moment" - which, if it happens day after day, must be some sort of lie.

And then, once you get through, there is the joy of talking to a succession of people, each of whom asks for the same information. Meanwhile, the company thoughtfully punctuates the process with mind-numbing loops of songs belonging to the genre ironically known as "easy listening".