I GOT home and the phone was ringing. “I said, ‘Who’s speaking?’ “And a voice at the other end said, ‘You are.’”

That witty Tim Vine gag is my favourite phone joke… but there’s nothing funny at all about being stuck on the telephone in an electronic loop when you can’t get anyone to answer.

So doesn’t your heart go out to Jean Tapping, who spent four weeks trying to find a human to speak to in the tax office? (No funny remarks please. It’s a tough job but someone has to do it.) And she still hasn’t managed it!

Jean has spent £22 on calls in the hope of requesting tax records for her daughter. So far, to no avail. Every time, exasperatingly, the recorded voice said they were busy, try again.

Even though the Inland Revenue are hard to get through to at this busy time of their year, you can bet your bottom dollar (provided you have declared it) that they will get through to you pretty smartly if the boot is on the other foot.

When it comes to good customer practice, it’s time the Inland Revenue rang the changes.

You wonder how many other people wanting to make sure they are paying the right taxes have also been left hanging on the line, finding even their patience being taxed.

Oh and what’s my second favourite telephone joke? Yes, it’s another one of Tim Vine’s where he says: “So I rang up British Telecom and said, ‘I want to report a nuisance caller’. He said: ‘Not you again’.”

That, unlike, it would appear, the ones at the tax office, is what you might call a very good line.