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And so, it’s nearly over. Barring the handover of some details that will set me free to forge a new life with a new partner, a relationship stretching back nearly 10 years draws to a close. Yes, I’m leaving my mobile phone provider.

But it hasn’t been easy: not because of some peculiar affection for a company which enables people to track me down at any time of night or day. No, it’s literally been the most difficult contractural arrangement to extricate myself from, ever.

Up to now, the service given by this household name has been quite acceptable (they let me make and receive phone calls - hard to mess up if you’re a mobile phone operator). I paid my bills on time by direct debit, so it’s the very least you’d expect. But dare to close your account and be prepared for the full force of corporate inertia to be unleashed.

The minutiae of the case is too painful to recount, but when Tory leader David Cameron referred last week to the Government as “Stalinist”, it suggests that he clearly hasn’t tried to swap his mobile phone number between networks.

After two months of endless phone conversations with an array of chirpy call centre staff promising to phone back with answers, trips to one of the company’s high street branches which bears the same name but might as well be a cheese shop for all the help it’s been, the pain should soon be over.

But anyone who lives within a radius of at least five miles will have heard me talking about this company in a way that would make Gordon Ramsay blush. It’s an old adage about the unhappy customer telling hundreds of people, but the level of customer service displayed sometimes by companies hints that they really don’t care. For all the investment they throw at advertising, PR and clever sponsorship deals, they are undoing it all at the point of delivery. 

Astonishing to note, but there is actually a British Standard Code of Practice for Customer Service, which is clearly being used to prop open doors or support coffee mugs across the nation. Elsewhere there is some pretty comprehensive advice to be had for free on the subject.

With the cost of winning new customers far outstripping that to retain existing ones, it’s curious that nobody yet at the mobile phone company has asked me why I wish to leave or what they could do to make me stay. Maybe they were about to dump me, but just got fed up of being put on hold.  

As I write, the House of Lords is debating the 42-day detention amendment to the Goverment’s counter-terrorism bill, which - if passed - would increase from 28 to 42 days the amount of time a terrorist suspect could be held without charge.

To support opposition to the bill, campaign group Liberty has orchestrated 42 UK writers to publish work tackling the implications of the legislation head on, with the results posted on a special section of Liberty’s website. 

The Liberty campaign is a brilliant piece of PR: securing 42 high profile writers to contribute their own words on the subject; designing the web site as a 42-day calendar and gaining press coverage such as that in yesterday’s Observer (half an early news page), aimed at precisely the left-leaning libertarian reader who is more likely to rattle his MP’s cage on the matter.

But the key element here is the writers. Whether or not they could be deemed “celebrities”, their profile raises that of the campaign.

Choosing the right, high profile people to associate with your campaign is a sticky business: finding someone who has sufficient profile and resonance with your chosen audience and who will reflect the brand values of your product or cause. Some choices are clear cut in their brilliance while others seem to work in spite of themselves. 1960’s model and icon, Twiggy’s association with M&S just works. Ironically, so does M&S and Mylene Klass, despite the latter being not really a model nor a pop star, but somehow right for the brand.

Here is a selection of brands that had an association with a star, with a suitable clip to refresh your memory. Can you name the star before clicking on the brand? For those readers under 30, you might need to ask a grown up.

Curly Wurly; Campari; Cinzano Bianco; Boddingtons; Memorex; Fosters; Teach your kids to swim (public information film); Olympus Trip; National Westminster Bank

With the Western world’s financial system seemingly disintegrating around us, it’s no surprise that the magic formula for business buoyancy - confidence - evaporates.

In tough times it’s natural for businesses to take immediate action . But is it right to shave PR, marketing and communications from the budget? Along with the allocation for training and Belgian chocolate biscuits, marcomms is an easy target. If the late, great Bill Hicks had anything to do with it, we’d all be six feet under.

But in such uncertain times, there is a need for clear and open dialogue. Insightful comments on the topic have been shared on LinkedIn.

How would you justify the marcomms team and budget not being chucked overboard?

They say that politics is showbusiness for ugly people, well step forward Lembit Opik. Former beau of both weather girl, Sian Lloyd and one of the Cheeky Girls, has enlisted the services of Bell Pottinger in Liverpool to try and buff his image sufficient to get him elected as Lib Dem President.

Bell Pottinger have plenty of form in moulding the profile of unpopular politicians but why choose the Liverpool office? I guess as a Lib Dem, the head of BP Liverpool, Richard Clein, has a personal relationship with Lembit.

This is definitely part of a trend in our media obsessed world. Disgraced former Lib dem front bencher, Mark Oaten, has been using the services of a former Lib Dem spin doctor to try and repair his public image. There’s nothing wrong in this. I’ve done a fair bit of this kind of work myself and its extremely interesting. No word on whether Lembit is paying Bell Pottinger but Guido has a way of finding these things out:)

The next thing you know, we’ll be seeing fading politicians staging a comeback by appearing on reality shows.

A few titbits;

•  DJ Collins, Google’s Head of Comms, has recently been outed, firstly here and then in PR Week,  as David Miliband’s ‘media man’. He’s the guy guiding Joe 90 on a road to media adulation to match his mentor, Tony Blair’s rise in the mid 90s.  So why was DJ part of Gordon’s speechwriting team? My source says it was a clever move to get Miliband’s top spin-meister into the tent and focus Miliband’s camp on the common aim. May be that’s why Miliband was so careful in his speech not to be seen as throwing too much red meat to Gordon-baiters?

• In those three weeks while Gordon was on holiday Southwold District Council got more coverage than the Labour government. Team Gordon seemed to forget that just because the PM is ‘out of office’ doesn’t mean that political journalists switch to become sports journalists. They still have space to fill so why did they let the Tories fill it for them? Andy Coulson is clearly more aware of how to fill a newspaper than Brown’s spindoctor, Damien McBride. I understand that McBride was berated in the bar of the Midland Hotel at 3am this morning and just ‘didn’t get it’.

• There’s increasing talk that the Mirror’s Political Editor, Kevin Maguire, may finally relent and take up the media role at Number 10. The Party wants an attack dog, who understands the issues, understands the press, understands the Party and will agressively go after the Tories. Kevin has Labour stamped through him like a stick of rock. He’s a Party member and his Mum plays an active role up in the north east I believe. He’s also extremely bright and a brilliant journalist. He’s always said he couldn’t do it as he would never want to lie to a journalist. He’s thinking if he doesn’t do it now he might never do it. And he wouldn’t need to lie!

• And finally well done John Prescott. He’s the nearest that Labour’s got to the ‘Straight Talk Express’ and now he’s no longer in Cabinet he’s even more direct. He talks like the people or at least a huge proportion of them who otherwise just switch off when they hear Estuary English and a pre-programmed soundbite. His interview with Paxman was a corker. No official messaging, no buzzwords, no dancing round the issues. He put Paxo in his place. Look forward to more of that as Gordon uses him to say the things that Cabinet Minsiters can’t say.

Why do I feel like someone’s trying to put me on the street?

Now, anyone can cut and paste their press release into the press release grader and get an instantaneous report on its quality and effectiveness.

Frankly, I’m not overly worried (yet) and I think it’s a bit of fun for PR practitioners to play with. I also think that Robin Wilson is a terribly polite  about it on his blog.

While I don’t agree the press release is dead (not many national journalists will say “press release? Nah? Let’s talk about it over coffee”) the press release grader doesn’t help those getting a bad score to really understand how they need to put it right. Done well - usually by professionals - the press release can be a powerful tool to spread a (operative word) good story far and wide. In fact, magazine staffs are so pressurised that a well-written release can sometimes be cut and pasted wholesale, particularly online.

Nice toy, but no substitute for real experience and good old-fashioned news sense.

Nick Faldo, golf’s iceman, was more than a little shaky in the opening ceremony speeches of this year’s Ryder Cup. And the media doesn’t miss a trick. In fact, the trick becomes the news.

Radio 5 Live this morning took great pleasure in lampooning European team captain Faldo for getting one of his team’s name wrong, for asking another whether he hailed from “Ireland or Northern Ireland” and for a sub-Muhammed Ali gag involving butterflies and bees. By contrast, the American captain, Paul Azinger, came across as “assured” and ultimately winning the PR battle.

Of course, the winning or losing will be on the green. But if the top man, in any role, is seen to be a communications liability, the media will leap on it like dingos. Often, the problem is everyone’s too scared to suggest the top guy needs to work to a brief or at least some well-rehearsed and clear messages.

Bosses have been responsible for damaging their company’s reputation and even sinking their own businesses with ill-judged comments (stand up Gerald Ratner). Politicians, who should know better, can be just as bad. Our media training friends at Perris-Myatt this week highlighted deputy leader, Harriet Harman’s response to the Times when asked if she would want Gordon Brown’s job if ousted: “I cannot remember the answer to that”, she allegedly replied.

Even the top people need a helping hand with their communications skills at times.

Don Bartholomew’s blog offers a refreshing take on the measurement and evaluation of PR, both for the old and new media worlds. He offers terminology and techniques that could be grasped by, well, anyone - which should be the sign of good public relations, right?

There are those times - thankfully rare - when the PR practitioner looks at the day’s task and thinks “could this get any worse?”

From a cursory look at today’s news I have picked my top 5, in no particular order, of thankless PR tasks. Can anybody add to this litany of PR horror?

 1. Anything to do with the Spanish Olympic team.

2. Selling Basra as a tourist destination.

3. Explaining those pesky - and very late - kids’ test results.

4. Putting the odd caveat on press freedom in China.

5. Getting anyone to shout “come on you blues”.

Sally Whittle over at journalism and PR blog, Getting Ink, tells it as it is when it comes to receiving junk (i.e. irrelevant or badly targeted) PR material from so-called PR professionals.

But how many companies buying in PR support are aware that the antics of their agencies might be getting their stories - and hence their reputations - blacklisted by journalists?

Asking who and why agencies are talking to on your behalf (and how) is too important a question not to ask.