That's a nice boiler you've got there...

...it'd be terrible if something happened to it.

British Gas is again trying to frighten householders with junk mail alerting them to the dire consequences of not taking out a maintenance contract to insure against boiler breakdown. Their latest attempt has just flopped onto my mat. On the front cover is a boiler repair bill, complete with invoice number. Inside it says "For once, we thought you'd like to see a boiler repair bill." Though there's a certain amount of plausible ambiguity in the wording, we're clearly being asked to imagine that the figures quoted on the bill can and will be a lot higher if we don't pay £13 a month, whether the boiler we own is brand new or 20 years old. That price is, I discovered after following the associated asterisk to the small print, only available to new customers for the first year, and is "subject to change". Oh, and "Evening and weekend calls cost 6p plus to 2ppm from a BT Calling Plan...". The acronym "ppm" means pounds per minute. That's outrageous, as is "6p plus".

After a certain age, boiler insurance is a good idea, but it's not a good idea to put the frighteners on people to get them to sign up. This literature is clearly designed to scare people. Well, bring it on, Sid. I don't care. In fact, I welcome a deluge of British Gas nastygrams, and here's why.

A postman I know says he's compelled to deliver junk mail given to him at the sorting office when it's not actually addressed to an individual. It's an offence for him not to deliver it, in fact. There's no opt out via the Mailing Preference Service, either. That's a great loophole, but it's backfired in British Gas' face. You see, where I live is all electric and I can change a fuse. So, British Gas are wasting their money. The question is, what would they give to know exactly which households in the UK are all-electric? £13 a month, perhaps? Only for the first year and subject to change, of course...