What a kind, courteous lady you are, to give so much of your time to cold callers from cowboy companies! There are many talismans (talismen?) you can use to cut the conversation short after one sentence without being rude. Try "I'm sorry, but my husband is upstairs with acute coreopsis and is not expected to last the night: I really can't talk to you now."

When he said "may I ask how old your kitchen is?" (or at the latest "may I ask whether it's in a good state?"), my response would have been to simply say "No". Or if I am feeling all polite and civil, to say something like "Goodbye and have a nice day".

On the other hand, a cold call from a kitchen company would almost make a pleasant change from the perennial lottery cold calls we get over here.

You are very kind and patient to the telemarketers! I am not. For me, the fun part if I don't let the call go to the answering machine, is to get them off their script. For example, no matter what their product or service is, I tell them that I already have it. Or I fake interest for about a minute, then ask them to hold while I turn off the oven, then just leave the phone off the hook and see how long it takes for them to hang up.

I recently found the following URL to an amusing flowchart to get them off their script. I am just waiting to use it...

http://www.xs4all.nl/~egbg/counterscript.html

Well, Tony, I wouldn't be surprised if some of them just asked you if they can call you back the day after, then... ;-)

Maybe we should all start drawing up a list of such "abracadabras"...

Or much any obscure-sounding latin name of organism, really. I personally like "Santanachelys" and "Nycticeius" (respectively an extinct turtle and a bat).

My method never fails: I always say *Sorry, I am just the cleaner, there is nobody else here at the moment*.

Very funny Tony, I usually say that my husband is in the business, so over the years he has been a kitchen designer and fitter, a lawyer (for wills), a glazier, amongst other things. My other way out is the children are in the bath and it's not a convenient time as they may drown...

My father-in-law shocks cold callers into stunned silence by saying "I'm sorry, we don't have a telephone here".

I used to get calls like that all the time. I don't any longer: I subscribed to something whose name escapes me (and I can't look it up because I've lost all my Favorites in a recent computer collapse) and, poof, they went away. I got rid of junk mail in the same way.

Anyway, when I used to get calls of that sort I never had any qualms about putting the phone down quite rapidly with, 'I'm sorry, this is not a good time. Goodbye!' If some person I don't want to hear from is rude to me by calling me and disturbing me, I don't see why I can't be rude back.

I wasn't expecting to get so much excellent advice, I see that telemarketers are "popular"! I suppose I struggle to be rude to them because they sound so nice and I rarely get such calls anyway. And in a past life, I sold vacuum cleaners door to door (I lasted a week), so I feel some empathy towards them.

Bela: I think you're talking about the Telephone Preference Service (http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/tps/). I've subscribed to it at home and I think I'll list my office number as well now that it looks like I've been found.

Oh, I wish someone would call me so I could use Amanda's FIL's line. It's hilarious.

I can see now why you're so nice to telemarketers, Céline, but you have to forget about the past and get tough.

You're right, it was the TPS (I'm gonna bookmark it again; thanks for reminding me). It works, doesn't it?

I am tough! And I'm not particularly nice. Or kind. Or courteous. Or patient. You should see me on a football pitch. I'll let you know about my progress with cold callers. And yes Bela, TPS works and Amanda's FIL's line is brilliant.

In Chile we don´t get a real person... they have a recorded message of some famous person. Can you believe it? You don´t even feel guilty for hanging up. I actually never have a problem with people like that, door to door salespersons and people in the street. Somehow they know that they are wasting their time.

And surely "talisperson" and "talispeople" "talisman" is just a perpetuation of gender stereotypes of the male protecting the helpless female.

;)