A weird one today. The charity I volunteer for has asked me occasionally to compile lists of events in certain locations. Just, basically, so that if somebody comes to us, we can signpost them to events in their area.

A couple of weeks ago, they asked me if I would look at an existing list, and check whether the contact numbers on it were still good. By the looks of things, the lists were from around 2018, and I just spent the afteernoon making about forty or fifty phone calls to check things.

All was uneventful until I spoke to one woman. I’m sorry, if you would like any information, I will not divulge it over the phone – you will need to write to me instead. So, I thanked her and said my goodbyes.

The thing was, I wasn’t actually asking for information. Not much, anyway. The entry was some kind of special-interest group, meets in such-and-such a location on the first Tuesday of every month, something like that. I obviously had the phone number, plus details about the group, alreeady, and I just wanted to know whether the number I had was still a valid contact point for the group.

I mean, it is weird. Undeer normal circumstances, someone calls cold, my advice would be just to tell them to p*** off. If someone ever cold calls you, I would advise exactly the same. Or better still, just don’t engage at all. If you have a machine, all’s the better – if it is a bona fide call, they will leave a message.

But if somebody does run one of these groups, wouldn’t you have thought they’d want people to know about it, and at least be prepared to divulge information about how to contact it? Quite seriously, if this woman did not want to confirm any information to me, theen it is unlikely that she would want to divulge anything to one of our clients either, so the entry is probably best off just being removed from the list altogether.