Hello, is that the Chicken Cafe?

How do you get away from people you don't want to speak to? It used to be impossible, as you had to pick a ringing phone as things like caller id didn't exist.

When I was young we used to get phonecalls every night, regular as clockwork with people asking "Is that the Chicken Cafe?". It happened for months. Turned out our number was the same as a place called "The Chicken Cafe" in a nearby town. Same number, different area code.

It got so prevalent we started answering the phone with a cluck and once told a customer we were full because of a big egg conference in the area.

Of course, now mobiles have come along and made it easier by showing you who was phoning. Then it moved on to allowing you to customise the ringtone and picture on your phone, to give you more warning. I actively have pictures of monsters and villains to represent the people I don't want to speak to. If Dracula pops up, I ain't speaking to him (he works in Banking).

So it should be so easy now to avoid speaking to the wrong people. Well, it should. Until your phone tells you that call is from "private number" and human nature takes over.

I know that "private number" more than likely means it's from a place with lots of phones that go through an exchange. But whenever it pops up I'm always intrigued. I think that it might be from someone like the Premium Bonds people, someone headhunting me for an amazing job testing PS3 games for a living or maybe the local curry house offering me a loyalty card.

So, inevitably, I have to pick up. And then I find it's my bank or a telesales call and I'm miffed. I seem to get a lot of people offering me a chance to win a cruise - the most woefully inaccurate piece of marketing I've ever experienced - they might as well be inviting me to my own guillotining.

Why can't it be someone amazing once in a while? A friend of mine works in the media and has become good friends with an icon from my teenage years, so apparantly one day my phone will ring - an unknown number and when I answer I'll be speaking with 90's pop icon Betty Boo.

And you know what. It did. And she was very nice to me, despite the fact I sounded like a mentalist stalker.

Take that Chicken Cafe.