SIXTY SECONDS

My phone rings, shaking my desk with shock. I glance at the number. 020 something something something. London. I normally ignore these but I'm feeling different today. PPI, mobile phone sales, insurance, surveys? The grubby wheel of possibility spins as I slide the touch screen and lift the phone to my ear.

"Hello?" I say, realising that I've naturally decanted a mixture of cheeriness and caution into two syllables. The phone line crackles. Nothing.

"Hello?" I repeat.

"Hello," says a voice from another continent. His 'hello' is racing as though he's on some sort of deadline. Sure enough, he launches into words he could recite in his sleep, words that no longer carry any value or meaning to him nor me but still trip off the tongue like times-tables. I worked at Yell. I know the tone. He asks me if he can have 'just one minute' of  my time.

"Alright," I say, "You've got sixty seconds. Go!"

He fumbles on.

Step 1 - is this your address?

"Yep."

"OK sir, and can you tell me please, do you regularly read a newspaper?"

I don't, no. 50, 49, 48...

"You don't know?"

"I don't, no."

"OK sir. Do you drive?"

Yep.

"Is your car over three years old?"

No. He pauses here, apparently surprised by this. Perhaps he's selling MOTs? My head ticks down through the low 40s and into the 30s. He continues.

"Do you have medical insurance?" he asks next. This is an odd line of questioning, I think to myself. Address, newspaper, car, medical insurance. Is someone trying to bump me off? Poisoned paper? Tampered brakes? All seems very elaborate. The silent clock blips under 20 and we're approaching the end. He asks me if I own my own home. I tell him I do not.

He wonders what kind of phone I've got. 10, 9, 8, 7... I tell him it's an iPhone and that he has 5 seconds left. He panics.

"Oh sir," he pleads, "just one final question!" I imagine him sweating at his desk as he thinks of his targets and the manager who sets them.

"I'm really sorry, your time is up!" I say as politely as I can. I feel sorry for him, but I hang up in any case.