WHOEVER said an Englishman's home was his castle said it a long time before the invention of telephone selling. Haul up the drawbridge, put the pitch on to boil, they've got two new weapons.

We were targeted by the first.

Now that even the youngest children call us by our first names, anyone who addresses us formally is at least in their eighties or wants to sell us something. That should have been a clue.

The phone caller wasn't one of our older friends, but Sir got caught on the hop by the "Mr Cave?" then "How are you?" in the sort of tones which imply the speaker expects to be recognised.

He was fine, said Sir, asking how the caller was while he raked around in his memory for the voice and came to the conclusion, from the accent, that it was an acquaintance he was expecting to contact him about a photograph. Failing that, it was the insurance company from which we were expecting a call.

It wasn't either of them. The caller mumbled the name of a firm - mumbling the name has always been part of cold callers' opening technique - then launched into understanding that Sir had a mortgage on his property. Told that this was not the case, he reckoned he had information in front of him that said otherwise but never mind. Had Mr Cave had an accident in the past two years?

By now suspicious, and no fan of the blame culture, Mr Cave said: "We're not going down that road. I don't agree with it."

"You don't agree with money?"

"No, not money got that way, and I'm registered with the telephone preference service."

Click. Silence.

So that's the latest salesman's gimmick to invade our homes - starting off in tones which imply the caller is known or expected, and you're involved in their spiel before you realise it's just another cold caller. Drumming up trade, apparently for lawyers who take accidental injury cases, is a new one for cold callers, too.

What is less pleasant is that this one reckoned to have information on us, even if it was wrong. We haven't had a mortgage for more than a decade, and the only form we've filled in recently which required details of our property-owning status was a local authority housing survey, completed anonymously. Maybe he was just covering his back and had nothing in front of him but a blank form waiting for the information he hoped we'd give him.

Then a neighbour told me of a second sneaky opening. He was informed he'd won a prize in a draw, but a draw he couldn't remember entering. The catch was that to claim it, he had to make an appointment for a security firm's representative to call to get his views on a new system.

Folding money says it would be a sales pitch. Folding money also says that the implication of a previous contact with the firm - the (probably non-existent) draw - is a way to get round being referred for censure by telephone preference system members.

Yes, this is one of my favourite soapboxes, but I make no excuse for standing on it again. I've never met anyone who isn't infuriated by Debbie from the double glazing or Karen from the kitchen fitters and, every time I mention the telephone preference service, requests come in for details of how to register. So why does it continue? Does anybody want it? Someone must, because no firm is going to continue with a sales pitch which isn't cost-effective.

It's no good. We've held out against it for long enough. We're going to have to go ex-directory. At least it will also stop the calls for Sir's similarly-named cousin, who's been ex-directory for years.

* Telephone preference service 0845 07000707 (24-hour automated service), or contact your network operator.