I just got home to find a bill from NTL. Accompanying it in the envelope is a glossy sheet advertising their new recommendations scheme: ‘Tell someone about us and we'll give you £30’.

Somehow, I suspect that if I tell people that NTL is the single most useless and incompetent utility company it has so far been my misfortune to deal with, and that's including British Gas who tried to bill me for £1000 I didn't owe them, they will probably not be coughing up thirty quid of beer money in my direction any time soon. Shame, really.