A little worse for wear recently after a night out in the New Forest, I found myself at 10am at Winchester services. As with all services, there was little if anything to write home about: They had the toilets with the happy or sad face options, an empty WH Smith, as is par for the course, an understaffed Costa and a burger joint (Burger King if memory serves me right, but that’s not relevant anyhow…).

It was the outside area that piqued my attention. As I stood in the bracing cold supping on an overpriced large cinnamon bun flavoured skinny latte, I noticed the ‘pet feeding station’ display outside the main entrance. No doubt costing a pretty penny, the impressive plastic signage showed a small menagerie consisting of a cat, a dog and a canary, like you’d take one of those to the services with you, mounted on the wall via the use of a high precision 3D plastic cutting machine.

Touché I thought, for a split second. A company that has something, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, that isn’t designed to fleece the motorist. It proved to me, for that nanosecond, that large corporations can be kind and that we can, occasionally, have nice things.

But then my eyes were immediately drawn toward the sum total of the ‘feeding station’. Expecting an array of Felix as good as it looks, or a bowl of Chum, or even some Wilko’s birdseed for the canary, I was saddened to learn the expenditure on the display did not extend to the feed on offer, consisting of little more than a Tupperware box of stagnant water with which to refresh your livestock before arguably they contracted foot and mouth or some other pet-based nasty.

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But it got me, once more, thinking of company claims versus reality and, much as I gripe like a middle-aged victor Meldrew, the situation gets incrementally worse, not better, with every passing year.

A few days prior I had been on the phone to my car insurance company who, after trying their darndest to catch me out over the exact date of a minor driving infraction of the rules, could not answer as to why they had pumped my premium up 80 per cent, once again, before I threatened to leave and got them back down again.

Why oh why must we enter into this war of attrition every year? The answer – because many of us can’t be bothered with the conflict. Its preferable to pay through the nose before you realise, you’re best served just buying a scooter or waiting around in the pouring rain for a bus that will struggle to hit 20 miles an hour.

To be fair, at least they didn’t use the go to of ‘inflation’ but explained that premiums have gone up ‘industry wide’ (when don’t they?), before I said tata and a loyalty discount was miraculously found.

Every little help, apart from employing staff to do the work for us, the customer, as we take on more and more of their workload despite the public proclamations being of them busting a gut to ensure we enjoy the experience.

No, dealing with big business and their dastardly inactions have become the norm in recent years, when they say one thing and the end result is anything but. Its akin to going on a tinder date with Kate Moss and ending up tied to a bed at Misery Kathy Bates’ house in the back of beyond, as you grit your teeth and convince yourself you are enjoying this abominable behaviour as they are doing all they can to make life as tricky as it possibly can be…