Putting you on hold: We were terribly excited to receive a laminated notice from Manchester law firm Kuit Steinart Levy that it has launched a PR hotline with 24-hour cover to deal with requests for 'authoritative' comment from journalists on any corporate or business news story.

Tempting though it was to stay awake until 4am before ringing up with a super-urgent inquiry on stakeholder pensions, we called during the day to test it out and were somewhat disappointed to be answered by some PR company that had just about heard of Kuits.

What if we were to call at 4am, we wondered? Well, came the unconvincing response, you could page one of us and there's bound to be somebody at Kuits we could get hold of.

Just as well the plans for 24-hour law are confined to the criminal field, all in all.