'Yourself' as misused by e.g. hapless bank tellers is usually a sort of attempt to sound professional or formal by someone who is not sufficiently in command of the language to be able to do so properly. I find it grates too, but telling myself that does reduce the irritation quotient - a bit.

I do my 'bear with a sore head' impressions in the mornings, such as today, when I was woken up by the Jehovah's Witnesses Q: 'Did I disturb you?' A: 'Yes.' The fellow should have withdrawn gracefully then, rather than trying to run through his spiel. It was not appreciated.

I sympathise, Simons Mith. Some years ago I seem to have stumbled across a method of reducing/eliminating nuisance calls from the Mormon bretheren. I had a shop at the time. A couple of their 'missionaries' came a-knocking in an endeavour to sell me their wares. In a shop, for heaven's sake! Anyway it was a quiet day so I took them on. An hour or so later, with only a few short interruptions for customer attention, they left - leaving me with a copy of The Book of the Mormon (interestingly sub-titled Another Testament of Jesus Christ) and a promise to pop back in a few days to give me time to have a look through it. They did not return. Disappointing in one way, most pleasing in another.

Luckily for me Bigsmith Towers is equiped with a large forward facing bay window, so (during the hours of daylight at least) i can see the buggers coming. This gives me the time to dust off and cue up a bit of good old death metal - something like Venom or Cradle of Filth - strip to my underpants and answer the door with can of Stella in hand. They don't stay long....

What's their success rate like, I wonder? It strikes me that anyone vulnerable to this sort of thing would have succumbed years ago, and then would sell out to the Mormons and so on as each came round in turn. If their success rate truly is zero, WHY DO THEY WASTE EVERYBODY'S TIME DOING IT!?