I’m not sure if I’ve told you about the disaster which befell my brand new iPhone in a bathroom-based incident a while ago, after I’d had it barely a week – which just goes to show the verisimilitude of the statistic pointed out to me by several piss-takers well-wishers that two of the most common forms of damage caused to iPhones is the screen cracking and that occasioned by submersion in water. Mine fell into the *ahem* latter category.

And no, I didn’t undertake the immersion-in-a-pouch-of-rice treatment afterwards; I was too upset and actually quite concerned that  a family member might find it and think it was a boil-in-the-bag ready meal, potentially making matters even worse.

Smarting from the incident, I wandered around the house in a daze, wondering what iniquitous deed I had perpetrated in my past which had rendered me deserving of such a harsh gadgetry-related punishment. Suddenly, I remembered; in an episode of The IT Crowd, precisely the same thing had happened to one of the main characters (Moss), after he had put his phone in that most conveniently placed of locations, the top shirt pocket – and I had laughed out loud.

My tweet to the show’s writer Graham Linehan, demanding compensation, elicited no response, so I turned my attention to my buildings and contents insurance, administered by a certain company from whom I could possibly have obtained a claim form in person if I had bothered to take the 20½-hour journey via Brittany Ferries from Plymouth. No, there isn’t a prize.

My first telephone conversation was with a very friendly and helpful young lady who, I realised after a subsequent conversation with another equally helpful young lady four days later (which was on the Friday afternoon), had done absolutely nothing she had promised, i.e. passed the matter to the company who dealt with damage repairs on their behalf.  So the second young lady made the same promise and, all things considered, I couldn’t help feeling rather pessimistic about the outcome. However, I had a call within a couple of hours, giving me a reference number and informing me that DPD would be collecting the phone for repair or replacement on the Monday, between 9.00am and 6.30pm.

I had a text message on Monday morning saying that the phone would be collected – bizarrely – between 12.18pm and 1.18pm! It was therefore with a strange but totally unfounded disappointment that I welcomed the DPD bloke at 12.21pm.

The company dealing with the phone had told me it was repairable and would be returned via Royal Mail within 7 to 10 working days. Given that Royal Mail make a habit of doing things like ditching first-class post, conveniently forgetting to tell everyone about it, and bearing in mind the onset of Christmas mail, I was not all that optimistic.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I was forced to make four more telephone calls, the repairing company decided the phone couldn’t be mended, the insurer coughed up the full amount for a new replacement (less £35 excess) and, as soon as the dosh appeared in my bank account, I hastened down to the nearest iPhone merchant and bought one.

I’d had a Blackberry for almost three years (which my employer provided) but I finally decided enough was enough (I hated it) and that, after a good deal of research, I was desperate to have an iPhone. This is called an Apple turnover.*

*I’ll get me coat