When I was about 15, I remember using a telephone engineering number to get the phone to ring, then pretending that it was my friend’s Dad on the phone, that we were in trouble, and that we had to go to his house right away – just to get my girlfriend to leave so I could hang out with my mates!

Fast forward 20 or so years and teenage girlfriends are definitely a thing of the past (I’m happily married, with two lovely kids). The engineering code that I used to know is also long since confined to a distant memory (but you can do something similar in the UK with 17070); however there is a new service for those who need to escape from dodgy dates, or other potentially sticky situations. For £1, text me outta here will send an SMS message at a pre-defined time and you can either ignore it (if things are going well) or use the excuse you dreamed up previously to get you out of a situation. It’s only been running for a few weeks but sounds like an interesting service to me!