I really sent this...

Dear British Midlands,

I appreciate the necessity of telephone hold mechanisms, and whilst I'd much rather speak to someone immediately, I'm normally quite content to wait. Perhaps even for a considerable amount of time. Certainly I've waited longer than the 15 minutes I've currently been on hold for before without complaint.

Whilst waiting, I ask for very little. Some soothing classical music perhaps. Something current from the charts at a stretch. I can even stomach muzak if the situation absolutely warrants it. What I've just discovered I can hardly bear, however, is the incessant advertising of your services you're currently forcing on those who would deem to speak to any of your representatives on the telephone. It really does adds a whole new level irritation to the experience. Please can I beg of you to end these prattling announcements and replace it with something - anything - more bearable.

Let me just be clear:

I don't care about the weekly flights to Antigua or Saint Lucia. I didn't care the first time I heard it and I certainly don't after the fifth or six times I've heard it. Similarly I'm planning no trips from Manchester to Toronto, Washington or Chicago.

Nor, despite your endlessly looping pleas, am I about to sign up for a BMI Classic Mastercard. In fact I'm now unlikely to ever do so, purely out of spite at having been forced to listen to the same advert over and over and over.

I'm not impressed that BMI is a member of Star Alliance, nor that the afore mentioned alliance is the largest of it's kind. The immensity of the organisation has done little so far to enable me to speak to a human being, and such bragging feels like rubbing salt in the wound.

Finally I'm already familiar with your website, and I promise my affection for it is waning with every repetition. Functional though it is, can I suggest that you publish a contact email address in future. It seems a curious omission and I feel much happier writing to an email address than I do submitting an anonymous web form.

I appreciate this has been a bit of a whinge - please be assured that I bear none of the staff of BMI any ill will, and I write this with as much good humour as I can muster as I'm slowly driven insane by the none stop marketing campaign I currently have no choice but to listen too.

Ah, I'm afraid I've been summoned to a meeting so I have to take my leave of you now. Alas, I must hang up the phone before having the chance to speak to anyone. Please let me know if there's any chance of obtaining an alternative hold tape - I'm quite partial to a spot of Elgar if you require any suggestions - in the near future and I'll refrain from calling back until then.

Kind regards,
Mark Steyn