IF anyone wants to check by phone whether electrical goods or accessories are available from Currys, after my experience I wouldn't bother.

I tried to ring the number for the Leigh store given in the book, but of course it has changed to a dreaded call centre.

It took repeated dialling and 20 minutes of my time to finally reach some snotty person who was of little or no assistance.

All I wanted was to see if I could get hold of a head cleaner for my seven years old camcorder which has started to play up.

Five times after waiting for six options and pressing number one for the service I wanted, I hung on -- and on -- but the phone cut off each time.

On the fourth attempt I took my own advice not to press any number and wait for an answer, but that didn't work either. I got the whole six option rigmarole over again.

I then pressed '0' for other inquiries but that was to do with finance, so I answered a request to press the star button to go back to the main menu, waited and got cut off again.

I rang once more and eventually got a voice which told me that they only did one type of cleaner, if I wanted another sort I'd have to try Dixons.

Good advice. I did and amazingly got through to a shop assistant at the first attempt.

Congratulations to them for remaining available and customer friendly. They'll be my first choice in future for bigger purchases.