Sometimes working from home is great. You make yourself a coffee, you wear your PJs until you feel like it, you have access to whatever weird thing you think you might suddenly need (a quote from a favourite book, some notes you wrote for another script nine years ago that might provide a clue, a big furry jumper to put on over your PJs).

But...

The telemarketers call me at home. My telemarketers are very nice people from India, who are always deeply thrilled that I have won the special once in a lifetime chance to sign up for eight years with a mobile phone carrier I have never heard of.

However, when you get up from the middle of a writing reverie and you stumble across the room towards the telephone and hear that telltale gap before anyone speaks, you really don't appreciate the tone of voice that the telemarketers take when they ask, "Is that Mrs Clarke?"

I have told them on many occasions that Mrs Clarke is not my name. I am not married to a member of my family, or coincidentally married to another person called Clarke who also spells it with an "e" on the end. I have told them also that I do not wish to speak to them, that this is a work number, and that the police are tracing the call because they are illegally not telling me where they got my phone number from. (Naturally, this last one is not true but it does tend to scare them).

Most of you have hopefully already heard this brilliant telemarketing prank. If you haven't, please do yourself a favour and have a listen. It's possibly the only way to get a telemarketer to give out his address over the telephone.

Not all of us can manage that, though.

So here is my advice: sing.

Now, whenever the phone rings in the middle of the morning, as I walk towards it I think of a song I know the words to (Ben Folds, Ani Difranco, even a bit of "Did you Ever Know That You're My Hero") and when I hear the Indian telemarketer asking can he please speak to Mrs Clarke, I sing. Loudly. As out of tune as possible.

After maybe a couple of verses, or up to the point where I can't remember the lyrics, I stop and I hang up the phone. Listening to the reaction at the other end of the phone is especially fun. I'm hoping they have to tick some kind of box such as "CUSTOMER HUNG UP" or "CUSTOMER NOT HOME" or "CUSTOMER ABUSIVE". I am hoping they have to make a new box called "CUSTOMER APPEARS TO BE SINGING".

Anyone who gets the same calls, try it. We shall overcome.