I hate it when I get phone calls from people selling things I don't want or services I don't use.

I hate it even more when I get wrong numbers at midnight or when I'm settled in the bath; but I hate it most when I don't get any calls at all.

And that's the position I'm in at the moment - a moment, which has already lasted three days. Nobody can phone in and I can't phone out.

According to BT there's a mysterious blockage (a wrong number gone berserk perhaps?) somewhere along my line.

People who call my number get a constantly engaged tone and those who appreciate that even I am not given to yapping on the phone 24 hours a day, ring BT to find out what's happened.

"There's a fault on the line," they are told. BT fails to add: "And nothing's going to be done about it for another two or three days, at least ..."

By the time an engineer gets here I'll have been without a phone for five days.

Friends say they think this is "bloody terrible". I've heard those words so frequently in the last few days that in our house the initials BT no longer stand for British Telecom.

Welcome instead to Bloody Terrible, a service that doesn't give a damn that you work from home and really NEED a phone line or that The Mother is in her eighties - and aren't the elderly supposed to be at risk without a phone?

Unfortunately I haven't got a mobile phone - I never thought I'd say those words. I may well be the last person on the British mainland to be minus a mobile but I've never felt a need for one. Until now.

Now I am reliant on the kindness of neighbours with fully operational phones to keep me in contact with the outside world, including, of course, BT.

When I first reported the fault a recorded message asked me to perform a variety of tasks, including pressing buttons and entering phone numbers.

Play this game and, after ten minutes or so, you get a Real Person.

The first Real Person I spoke to gave the impression of wanting to distance BT from the fault. He asked whether I'd had any problems with my bills? i.e. had I been paying them? I assume.

Then he suggested I get a screwdriver and look inside the phone socket. No, I said, I didn't think that was a good idea. How about a visit from a BT engineer instead? I suggested.

I was told BT was very, very busy. "All the bad weather we've had recently, you know." But something, I was assured, would be done.

Four hours later nothing had been done and I called BT again from a neighbour's house. A message told me that a fault had been reported on my line but that it had been corrected.

Oh, no it hadn't - but try telling that to a recorded voice.

Having no other option I played BT's waiting game again and after several minutes of button pushing and name calling, was connected to a second Real Person.

He apologised for BT's shortcomings (and a sorry, soothes many a savage breast) and said a BT engineer would definitely call round, he'd make the appointment himself.

"I'll be in all day tomorrow," I said.

He didn't laugh when he told me that the earliest possible appointment would be in five days time.

"We're very, very busy - all that bad weather we've had recently you know ..." Anyone out there got a carrier pigeon?