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I often find myself caught between extremes. Royal Mail are experts at this:

Time it takes for their customer service rep to pull up my account, listen to my query, and give me a sensible answer that resolves the whole thing: just a shade over two minutes from "hello" to "goodbye". That's great customer service!

Time spent on hold before that could happen: also about two minutes. Not great, but not upsetting.

Time spent listening to and navigating around the recorded menus, which includes repeated and non-bypassable encouragement to check the website (if the information I wanted was available on the -ing website, I would not have had to call), before even getting into the hold queue: almost ten whole minutes by the clock. That's not customer service, that's a tenth circle of hell.

I'm a knitter. My current projects-in-progress include two pairs of socks (handbag-sized knitting projects, great for dentist's waiting rooms), one lacework wrap made of a really nice bamboo/silk combination, and one massive fluffy shawl made of merino wool combined with kid mohair, which is shedding all over the sofa.

I'm also a blogger, but I'm trying to keep the blog and the business separate.

I love my G1. Mostly because it *has* the tactile keyboard, but has it hidden away where it doesn't look intimidating when all you want to do is find the button to answer a call.

I've had three or four phone calls asking me to "support our boys and girls in blue" by advertising with some kind of unspecified police event.

Not a huge problem for me considering that (a) I'm not in the market for advertising and (b) I'd been warned about that one from other people, but still.

On the bright side, it confirmed that the shiny-new business phone number is definitely functional, definitely out there, and definitely attached to the correct business name!

*blush*

Thank you Sean. It's always a big boost to hear that a client is satisfied.

I think the point of the forum is to exchange tips on a two way basis - giving and receiving. It also puts small businesses in touch with other small businesses who can be of use to each other on a professional level.

It's like if a friend asked you to spend two minutes tidying up her fringe, you'd probably be happy to do that as a freebie, but if she wanted you to spend several hours cutting, styling and colouring her hair, you might feel a bit reluctant to give up that much time and expertise for free, so you'd either quote her a fair price for the job or recommend someone else who could do it for her.

I'm not sure what she'd want to achieve by that. I suspect it would be a visceral rather than a logical thing.

If you removed his listing, you'd be compromising his means of earning a living, surely this will only make a fit adult of working age unnecessarily dependent on the benefits system - or the even more overstretched and expensive prison service.

Obviously you can't share details of the listing or the offence... I could sort of see the sense if it was (for instance) a person convicted of child abuse running a daycare centre, but even then it would be more appropriate to alert the police rather than messing about removing listings.

I think a bad one would be better.

These are gorgeous - I think my favourite is the second pic in msg#5.

Have a talk with the Valuations Office Agency. They'll explain about whether you need to pay business rates or not.

Some of the many things which affect it include:
- whether the room still has any domestic use, or if it is purely business. For instance I work from home and this evening I will be in the same room, but sitting on the sofa in front of the TV with my boyfriend rather than sitting at the desk working. So it's still a domestic room.
- whether you are bringing in any equipment that would not usually be found in a home environment. A computer and a printer and a phone, no problem. An industrial shrink-wrapping machine might raise an eyebrow.
- whether your clients will ever come to your home and what provisions are made for them if they do.

There are a couple of ways to claim a portion of your heating/lighting/etc costs against your business. Best thing to do about this is just phone HMRC's self-employment helpline. They've been pretty good to me on the advice front, and they run courses for things like how to get set up, what records you need to keep, and so on.