I had a front doorbell once that stopped working and it was a good three or four weeks before I got round to rectifying the situation. I bought a new battery for the bell-push, having got the digital meter out and established the presence of insufficient voltage in the current one – see what I did there?

It still didn’t work.

One day, during our perambulations, we happened upon a Robert Dyas (I can never go past that damn shop) and I spotted a wireless doorbell on offer for 15 GBP instead of 30. You could even record and play your own messages or download music to the chime unit. I did toy with the idea of recording a shouted message along the lines of “open the f***ing door, someone!” but thought that might upset the Salvation Army if they ever called, so I opted for the default Big Ben chime, in my opinion somewhat pompously referred to in the manual as the Westminster. This was the least offensive of the 8 pre-loaded tones available included among which was the Lambada and the Mexican Hat Dance. I didn’t really want people dancing on my front doorstep.

Well, the bell-push already had a lovely CR2032 button battery installed but I had to nip round to the Co-op to get a couple of LR14s (aka UM2 or C) for the chime unit. Before I did that, however, I was in the kitchen fiddling with the new bell-push. When I pressed it, the old doorbell rang.

Bugger.