14th February:

Well, it was always going to happen, wasn't it? British business has finally realised that we, the great unwashed, simply do not like calling customer service helplines and ending up in Bombay. This is not some form of xenophobic comment, I hasten to add. Those lovely people in Bombay are only trying to do their jobs as best they can within the parameters laid down for them by middle-managers in Basingstoke - the real culprits in all of this and the proper targets for our ire. Personal experience of foreign call centres suggests that they are fine if you have a routine enquiry, but the moment you ask a slightly more exotic question that is not covered by the on-screen script you hit a dead-end and get referred to a UK number. It's a half-way house where the employees in India are not given the authority or expertise to do the full job and so end up doing more damage than good.

The Chinese government has stated that it wants China's economy to move in the next 10 to 15 years from being based around manufacturing to being based around science and innovation. Which ironically means that manufacturing will come back to Europe (Poland and Romania, probably) and Britain will still be a nation of shopkeepers.

It's an obvious point, but i'll make it anyway. You can cut costs but not at the expense of customer service - you'll get found out and quite rightly so.