It was one of those red letter days nobody wants. Well, actually, the letter wasn't red, but a calming shade of pink.

No matter, though, it still contained the news that somehow I'd left my electricity bill unpaid.

Quite how this occurred is a bit of a mystery as I thought I'd paid both my gas and electric accounts in one fell swoop at the bank recently.

Still, if they said I owed money they must be right. So I set about repairing my credit credibility as quickly as possible by picking up the phone to them.

I soon wished I hadn't.

British Gas – for it is they who, in this topsy-turvy world, also provide me with electrical power to Chez Davey – kindly supplied a special number and some gentle chiding to ring it should their reminder precipitate an urgent desire to pay.

Dial it, and you find yourself greeted by a slightly silky-sounding female voice talking you through the various push-button stages involved in using your bank card to pay over the telephone.

It all went swimmingly. I input the relevant card numbers. She told me to push the number 1 button to confirm.

How could I resist? Especially when she put it so nicely.

Together we went the distance. Then it happened.

Just as we were about to breast the finishing tape together, we tripped up.

I say "we", but in truth it was the system which failed us both.

I had got right down to the nitty gritty bit whereby, urged on by the British Gas robotic version of a financial femme fatale, I had pushed buttons to permit the deduction of a hefty few quid from my bank account.

Then, out of the blue (or should that be red?) she told me there were serious problems with our relationship.

In fact, she was nipping it firmly in the bud and referring me to "an adviser".

I was distraught, even though we'd been acquainted for such a short while.

Before I had a chance to say a proper goodbye, I was whisked off into another ethereal telephonic world.

One which, at the outset, didn't mince its words.

There would, it declared, be a seven-minute wait as everyone at British Gas was frightfully busy.

I hung on the line. What else could I do? I wasn't sure whether it had taken my money before it crashed.

In a very small way, I knew just how those folk with accounts at an Icelandic bank felt.

Anyway, for what seemed an age I endured an aural assault down the line telling me about British Gas' "generation green" schools programme, about its free energy-saving light bulbs scheme and – pointedly, given the situation I found myself in – how to fix my tariff until 2012.

I confess to being unmoved by any of it as I grew increasingly concerned that my payment and my details had disappeared into some hi-tech black hole at British Gas headquarters.

Anyway, sure enough, seven or so minutes later, after I'd heard all their telephone exultations for the umpteenth time, a male voice came on the line.

There had, he declared, been "a few errors" with their automatic payment system and, no, he assured me, I would not be charged twice.

He even checked if I had, indeed, paid my gas bill.

I had. So I was relieved on both counts.

The bailiffs would not be coming.

But the best thing about it all was that, unlike my silky-tongued female "friend" of less than 10 minutes earlier, this bloke was a real, living, breathing, 100 per cent human being!