What’s that about?? I’m on to esure but my bank has the same thing: music that sounds like some one is playing it from inside a box, wrapped in a flannel, while on a merry-go-round.

It’s the music off the hamlet advert i think. I only get four notes before it goes then comes back again.

The ‘please continue to hold’ woman, conversely, is so loud and clear she could be standing next to me with a mega phone.

Whiter Shade of Pale now. The bloke who played it sounds like he wants to jump off a cliff.

Think it’s something to do with VOIP systems not being able to carry mp3 very well or something. But agreed generally sounds awful, crackly shite

Ironically, it’s now Simon and Garfunkel, the Sound of Silence.

Finally got through, quoted my policy number

“You cancelled this sir. Did you find a cheaper policy?”

Oh yeah. Damnit.

Someone is using VoIP (voice over IP, aka phone over computer networks) and there’s not enough bandwidth for the stream. Really grinds my goat as it basically says “we don’t give a shit”.

Ours is the Ode To Joy, played with one finger on an 80s keyboard. Majestic.

(I once accepted a job entirely because their hold music was Different Class by Pulp- I phoned up to ask some questions and it was playing Feeling Called Love. Sold.)

The ‘please continue to hold’ woman,

I really, really hate this feature. Because Every Single The music goes *click* to play the announcement it sounds like someone’s answered and I go “ooh!” So it’s not even like I can ignore it and get on with doing something productive whilst I’m sitting there quietly growing a beard.

My landlord (social landlord eg council houses) has country house by blur as their ironic hold music

On New Years day at the turn of the millennium – when absolutely everyone had taken the day off – I spent over two hours on hold to Greenflag listening to a loop of not-quite-all-of ‘Come on and rescue me’

15 years later – At 3am when I’d had to clamber up a hillside in the dark to get a signal – they were still playing the same song and it and looped at the exact same point.

I think my worst musical experience though wasn’t on hold – it was in a restaurant somewhere out beyond Galway on the west coast of Ireland. We we’re out there on holiday and well out of season – only one or two establishments were open in the evening and we ended up eating in the same place pretty much every night.

The piped music was an old C90 of Vivaldi’s Four Season playing on a loop – and it had played for so long that the tape had degraded and stretched and now sounded like a jar of angry wasps being shaken. The staff seemed to be entirely deaf to it. We found it hilarious and I think the owner seemed to presume this meant we were having a good time. But most nights the only other diner was this poor american woman who was holidaying on her own – she just had this constant grimace “This used to be my favourite piece of music”