Maybe I'm more sensitive as answering enquiries is a good chunk of my job.

But this just doesn't seem right. Last week I had cause to email a company about a product I want to spend quite a large sum of money on. Fairly straightforward question. I finally had a response that appeared to come from a human being rather than being machine generated, but it was clear that at no point had my actual question been engaged with. It was though someone was half listening and decided to answer something they knew about rather than something they didn't.

Then today I finally had a reply from the university photographer. Actually, not the photographer himself whom I've emailed twice now, but his diary keeper. All I need to know is can I use the photographs he's already taken and I have on a CD to accompany an article in a professional magazine. So I was more than a bit irked when the answer told me all about how to book him for photographic projects.

Am I writing in Mongolian? Is my email going via AltaVista's great fun BableFish?

I was tempted both times to fire off rather sarcastic email replies, but I refrained. What if, just suppose, the answers I'm giving students are just like that? I "hear" what they say and go into my stock routines?