Night caller

It doesn't do much good, but I value my beauty sleep all the same, so I wasn't too amused and nor was Gill when the telephone awakened us at two in the morning. Gill answered to hear the kind of beep you get from fax machines. She put down the receiver and five minutes later the phone rang again.

We switched off the ring tone but the phone kept ringing in other parts of the house, disturbing everyone.

This time I decided that something had to be done. I dialled 100 to get the operator. It was an answerphone. I had to listen to three options before getting a fourth option enabling me to speak to an operator.

Operators used to be such useful and helpful people. Not any more. I'm not sure whether this one was actually employed by BT or whether they were in the UK, not that their location mattered.

I complained about the call and asked for the caller's number to be blocked (I had called it back and found it was engaged. I presume it was an automated fax machine). This is the number if you would like to check it yourself: 0207 719 8407. I rang it at length just now and no-one answered. Maybe I have made an enemy. I did write a negative book review recently.

The operator put me through to something called the nuisance call service. The person manning this service gave me another number to dial - 0845 070 0702 - for the Fax Preference Service and gave me an online address (www.fpsonline.org) since it did not have a 24-hour switchboard.

By this time I was becoming a tad irritated since it appeared that, after being passed from pillar to post, that BT did not have a remedy for my immediate problem: how to get a good night's sleep without being interrupted by an inconsiderate fax.

So I called the operator again and got a bit cross. The operator - it was the same one and she remembered me - got a bit cross too and passed me on to her supervisor who soon became as cross as the operator. They have training for this kind of thing (highly frustrated, grumpy, sleepless man fed up with being fobbed off) but the training is designed only to ensure that the operator (and supervisor) can stay relatively calm and professional while explaining that nothing can be done.

Having had no such training I cannot claim to have remained relatively calm. I didn't want a service that would become active in 28 days (what they were offering). I wanted the caller at 0207 7198 407 to be wiped off the face of the Earth.

The supervisor did offer one piece of advice. "You could unplug the phone," she said. But I had phones plugged in all over the house and some of the sockets were in places that are difficult to access. I didn't want to go on a plug hunt at what was now 2.30 am. I asked for the private number of Ian Livingstone, the BT chief executive, so I could call him that minute for a chat about things. But the supervisor, who was also grumpy by now, said she did not have it.

What irritated me most is that I did not have a beef with the operator (or the outsourced service that is employed now to tell nighttime callers that they cannot be helped), but with the fax machine operator. Who was it and why were they ringing me at that ungodly hour? I unhooked my fax machine long ago, about the same time that I got rid of the pony and trap.

Gill, meanwhile, explained that there was a master plug for the phone. Why didn't she tell me earlier? I went downstairs and unplugged it.

By this time I was wide awake so reached for my bedside book, The Book of Eels, by Tom Fort. This also happens to be about slimy nocturnal creatures, but ones that manage to go about their business without disturbing people.

"What? You're going to read now?" said Gill. She couldn't stand any more and went off to sleep in the spare room. What was going on? Why did I feel guilty when this whole fractious episode had been caused by an automated fax system.

There must be some privacy issues here. It can't be right that we can be disturbed in our beds in this way and we shouldn't have to instigate various services to deal with it. Yes, there is a Call Prevention Registry but this is a subscription service. Why should I have to pay for my privacy? A call to the operator should be enough.

NB. I called the operator back during office hours today and had a much better reception. This time I was put through to someone who actually seemed to care about my problem. The number, she said, was not registered with BT and was probably dialling our home number by mistake. She would get on to the relevant service provider and ensure that it didn't happen again. I hope she's successful.

All of a Twitter

I'm finding that social networking is rather like Marmite - you love it or hate it. So if you are in the latter camp and have just received an email from me inviting you to join Twitter.com let me send you my sincere apologies for cluttering up your email box.

If, on the other hand, you were curious to know more - as I see a few were - all I can tell you is that my co-presenter at a recent seminar on social networking was telling us that Twitter was the "new new thing."

Status box

What it does, in a nutshell, is to take one of the most popular features of Facebook - a "status box" that allows you to make a brief mention of something you are doing - and share it among friends or contacts.

Everyone is restricted to 140 characters a twitter so you must keep your message brief. But you can include web links and there is a feature to receive Twitter notes (or tweats) on your mobile phone.

Is it a great thing? I have no idea, but I'm going to give it a try in the same way that I gave Facebook a try.

Social profit

"So you have nothing better to do with your time," some friends have said. In reality I don't spend much time doing this stuff and there is always, always, always some kind of return. But don't think of financial advantage, think of social profit. As BT once said in its advertising: "It's good to talk." Now we might find that it's good to tweat too.

In addition to Twitter I have also signed up to FriendFeed - a site that aggregates your involvement in various social networks. It seems like a good idea. I joined another too but can't for the life of me remember what it was - oh hum.

David Creelman, a Toronto-based human resources specialist who runs Creelman Research and who I also find is Tweating, has given me his own take on how Twitter could be useful in the workplace.

Imagine you are working on a project with five other people. You all sign up to Twitter and have your own twitter group. At a glance you can see how each other is progressing.

As David puts it:

"I suspect that it will be of most use when a group of some sort decides to use it for a real purpose. For example, a dispersed team might suggest they all use Twitter and it could be almost like overhearing the buzz of background conversation:

A - can't get the new motor working, called in for service
C - arrived in Frankfurt, will see Tony later
E - finished the code for sorting
F - J. is sick so I'm at home

The messages here would be distinguished from email because there would be nothing "need to know here." At the same time if you glanced at this from time to time you might pick up useful information. Not only that, simply the buzz would make you feel you were part of a team (if you were in a remote location) not a guy alone in his home office wondering why he wasn't rich like his friends."

That last bit, incidentally, is a personal reference to a twitter remark by some sad dude. I can't imagine who.

Things I need: 1. Clock cosy

This is the first in a series. The idea is to list and describe things I need but which I never seem to get, often because no-one makes them and instead of making whatever it is myself I use some stop-gap measure that quickly and annoyingly assumes a sense of permanence.

Ever since buying a replacement bedside clock-radio I have needed a clock-cosy - a light-proof cover in a subdued colour, ideally black - that I can place over the clock.

The history to this is that we had a Sony bedside clock-radio for years that was no picture but that functioned pretty well until it began to crackle. The crackling came in a short burst some time at either side of "thought for the day" on Radio Four's Today Programme. Had the crackle run throughout thought for the day I would have put it down to divine intervention and thought nothing of it. But usually it interrupted something interesting.

So we bought a new clock (after enduring the crackle for about three or four years). The Sony shop had a choice of about four or five and we bought an egg-shaped clock that looked sort of futuristic.

The old clock had a dial setting. The new one had little buttons on the top. I set the buttons for lots of stations, all of which, apart from one, we did not need because we only listen to the Today programme.

Now the most important button on a radio-clock is the "off" switch that you need for weekends when you don't need to get up quite so early. Organised people might set their clocks before they go to sleep but I can never remember so I have to reach over to the clock in my slumbers, pressing the wrong button and knocking it to the floor.

Pressing the wrong button almost always knocks the station out of synch so we lose every station, including Radio Four and I have to go through the setting process all over again. Even worse than this, however, is the ridiculously bright LED display that, at its highest setting, bathes the room in an eerie blue light. I need total darkness so even a chink of light is too much.

For a while I covered the clock with a beer towel - stolen from a pub clothes line on a barge holiday during my teens. The towel, however, is one of my most useful items and gets borrowed for trips to the gym. So it's rarely there when it's needed. I have tried a sock but it's not ideal and doesn't look aesthetically pleasing. A handkerchief is too thin.

I have tried placing the clock upside down on the floor. But this makes it a devil to find when I need to turn it off at weekends. More than once the bedside table with the table lamp has come crashing down.

No, what I need is a neat cover but you can't find them in the shops. In fact I would take two if they were also sound padded and I would use the second for my office phone. This cordless BT phone does not have an off-switch or a divert to the answer phone. I have used a tea-cosy on this one but it's not ideal and means that the tea-pot goes begging.

I also need a phone-finder homing device for the cordless phone and all the other cordless phones that are never where you need them to be, but that's another story.

I should add that we did not get rid of the old Sony clock but put that on Gill's bedside table instead. Now we have clocks going off in stereo - one with it's annoying intermittent crackle and the other with just too many confusing buttons.

Life is too short for this. But we have yet to settle on a satisfactory solution. Any ideas?