Folks all over get excited about email spam and SMS spam. If you bulk email or SMS there needs to be an unsubscribe option. Fair enough. But how do you stop spam telephone calls?

Seems an odd thing to say, but I'm definitely getting solicitations over the phone that definitely falls in the category of spam.

My major bugbear at the moment is some crowd that calls me from Japan once a month or more. Trying to get me to by shares in the next great Chinese telecoms prospect last time I had a connection good enough to understand what the heck they were trying to say. A combination of a tricky accent and an overloaded Skype call-out connection makes for what can only be described as a particularly irritating noise.

That, together with an apparent inability to understand the words "No!" and "Not interested" makes for a rather frustrating experience. Oh yes, and obviously well overloaded on Dale Carnegie or some other sales course on how long to keep people on the hook.

To top it all, they've got hold of me cellphone number.

Yesterday I asked them where they got my number - "ting, buzz, crackle Mr. Alcock, but what I want tzz, brft, strng ish the hottest stock. You don't want to mish, zzt, trang,ssshwk ting, zzzip.." I put my cellphone down.

In fact that's what I'm going to do in future. Someone doesn't want to stop their pitch when I've plainly intimated I'm not in the market right now, the phone is going down.

I'm way to polite to disconnect. I can't quite bring myself to use that universally understood word so beloved by Billy Connelly. But I can put the handset down and let them chat themselves out.

The least I can do.

But the fella that invents an unsubscribe button for spam telephone calls, please call me - I'll be your first customer.