Then there’s been a week of frantic catching up. The cat won’t let us out of its sight at the moment.

And frantic catching up isn’t helped by nuisance calls, which mostly still seem to be from BT’s CustomerStreet. I wish the OFT would hurry up and do whatever it is they are going to do about these pests.

When you ring a tradesperson from the office, you might consider whether of not your call will show up as “Number Withheld”. A sole trader who’s at the end of their tether over nuisance calls might be tempted to let “Number Withheld”s go to voicemail.

If you’re a tradesperson in the UK you may well have received a nuisance call from the same bunch. I’m sure they pester plumbers, decorators, etc. just as badly. They open with “I’m calling from BT and I’m looking for a locksmith/plumber/whatever.” Of course they’re not. They’re looking to sell you website building or “optimization”. And if you take only a short look at the results of a google search on BT Customerstreet, you’ll struggle to find any happy customers; the only positive stuff you will find is BT Customerstreet’s own copious blogs which seem to be trying to crowd the complaint blogs and sites off the front few pages of google searches.

The other very annoying thing is their ignoring of the Telephone Preference Service or TPS. If you haven’t signed up with TPS, you might consider it. It does actually reduce the number of nuisance calls and cold calls that you get. A surprising number–the majority in fact–of telephone marketing and sales companies respect the TPS. But not BT Customerstreet.

Being BT they claim, with near certainty of being half right, that you are already a customer and therefore not covered by the TPS.

Anyway the good news is that the Office of Fair Trading have received several complaints. MPs have received complaints. Trades organisations have received complaints. So maybe something will happen to curb this unpleasant bunch.