Mark Daniels: Saturday morning phone calls...

Picture the scene, if you will. It's Saturday morning, 9:00 a.m., and it was a late finish the night before. The children are away and there's no reason to be up early. The sun is shining through the window and I'm snuggling in to my wife.

Us men, we've got a good way of getting them out of bed to make the tea, haven't we?

And then the telephone rings.

This is annoying on many levels (not least because one friend had already sent a text at 7:42a.m. to see if I was up and available for a bike ride), but it was even more annoying to discover that it was India calling.

"Can I speak to Mr Mark Daniels, please?"

And so ensues one of the most frustrating conversations I've ever endured. "Speaking," I replied.

"Yes sir, could you give me your date of birth and post code please?"

"Er, why?"

"Yes sir, this is your credit card company calling. I need to talk to you about your credit card."

Me: "But I'm in bed."

"Yes sir, but I need to talk to you about your credit card."

"But I'm in bed."

"Yes sir."

"You've woken me up..."

It went on like that for quite a while. I was bleary eyed from the night before, still sleepy, still feeling everso slightly amorous, and I was gasping for a cup of tea. The caller seemed to be ignorant of my explanation that he had woken me up.

Rather than relay an entire transcript of the conversation you could just repeat above ad nauseum​ interspersed occasionally with me saying "you aren't listening," and him saying "yes sir, but I really need to talk to you about your account."

For those of you who are of the more nosey persuasion, I had paid two credit card bills last month but the wrong amounts to each, meaning this particular call was about the card that hadn't received the correct amount. I didn't discover this until much later. I did, however, hang up on the caller after his eighteenth attempt to ignore what I was saying to him.

The phone rang again. "Mr Daniels, you hung up on me."

"That is correct, I did."

"Why did you hang up on me?"

"Because I'm in bed and you aren't listening to me."

By now, I'm quite angry, no longer feeling horny, and had upgraded my tea requirement to a full English breakfast. "I have said to you that I will check the details of my account and call you back."

"So can I say that you will call me back by ten o'clock a.m.?"

"What? No, you can't. I will be back at work then. I got to bed at four this morning and I've got to start again in about an hour. Please leave me alone. I will look in to the matter and call you on Monday when I have a day off."

"But sir, I need to sort this out now or you will keep getting calls."

Why can't these people just accept that I will call them on Monday? I knew I was raising my voice and getting more angry, but at least Ali, seeing an opportunity to escape my early morning advances, had got out of bed and gone to make the tea.

"Please," I said quietly, "I'm really quite cross now. I am not in a position to answer your query at the moment. To be frank, I was hoping to be in an entirely different position by now but you've ruined that for me too. Go away and I will rectify the matter with you on Monday."

And, with that, I hung up.

And then the phone rang again.

Feeling my temper break, I picked up the phone and literally screamed, "GO AWAY!" down the mouth piece. Except that you can use your imagination and be aware that I hadn't actually said 'go away' at all. But it had been quite loud.

"Mr Daniels," a voice said meakly at the other end. "I know you hate it when I turn up early on Saturday mornings, but it's your food service here. I'm outside with your stock delivery..."

I never shout at the delivery people. They do, after all, stop me from having to go out and get the stuff myself. They do a great job, and therefore I apologise profusely and, fortunately, he saw the funny side when I meekly wandered down in my Ferrari dressing gown and let him in, explaining what had happened.

I wouldn't, however, have apologised to the chap from the credit card company had it been him again on the other end of the phone...

The Publican Awards 2010

I would just like to say a great big thank you to everybody at The Publican for putting on a fantastic event last Wednesday evening. It was great fun and Ali and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

And congratulations to every pub who was nominated for an award. To get that far is a real achievement and it was brilliant to see a Greene King pub (The Whitmore Arms, Orsett, Essex) win Tenanted/Leased Pub of the Year.

Well done to everybody involved.

See all The Publican Awards 2010 Winners​.