ALL credit to the NEDL linesmen who toiled in foul weather, and in remote places, to reconnect thousands of customers whose power supplies were cut by the storms.

If only they had known how their best backroom efforts were being undermined, however, by a major public relations failure in the front line, namely the so-called telephone helpline run by the power distribution company.

Public opinion unfortunately does not draw a distinction between those working on the cold and windy ground and those responsible for producing pre-recorded messages in warm offices. Somehow "they" are all to blame for power cuts and lack of information.

Gone are the days when you could ring your local electricity depot to find the telephone being answered by someone who knew the area, could discuss problems and possibly offer a measure of reassurance.

Today you have to dial an all-purpose call centre number, covering a vast area stretching from Northumberland almost to Lincolnshire. "Metal Mickey," it was cynically described on Monday by one Wensleydale villager who had been without power for 58 hours.

Spectator, offering moral support to a village family a few miles away whose power had been off for 29 hours, was among those who endured this telephonic travesty involving at best a general list of affected areas and at worst a meaningless list of postcodes.

He found the recorded helpline often outdated and confusing - the postcode of the affected village near Richmond wasn't even mentioned - and for the whole of Saturday and the best part of Sunday morning didn't manage to speak to one live person before power was restored at 11am.

The repeated advice, for so long, that operators were too busy dealing with customers only reinforced the suspicion that there were not enough of them or that nobody was on duty at all despite the severity of the conditions.

It has to be remembered that much worse things have happened in the Asian tsunami disaster, but this was still an emergency closer to home and NEDL's public relations system has plainly been found to be deficient.

Choco horror

READERS will know, of course, that Spectator is a man of refined tastes. A man who doesn't necessarily settle for the obvious choice but seeks something more distinctive.

He was nevertheless amazed that a craving for plain chocolate was almost completely frustrated by an inability to lay his hands on a small bar of Cadbury's Bournville. Shop after shop in Darlington town centre failed to produce the required confectionery until the assistant in asmall newsagents in Bondgate was able to point me to one.

But, horror of horrors, they've changed the shape and the packaging. Instead of a thin bar in the gold foil and bright red outer wrapper, it's now a trendily chunky bar in a vacuum-sealed sheath. Not the same at all.