Breaking news - of a sort

The phone call came on Friday evening when all the news bulletins agreed that Tony Blair's appearance at the Chilcot Inquiry was the lead. The man who rang me had other ideas.

"I've got some breaking news, Mr Gerlis," he announced, barely able to conceal his excitement. I might have shared in some of that excitement had the phone call not been about shares, and specifically my couple of dozen in Lloyds.

Along with a single share in a struggling football club which has somehow never been the object of interest from the Gulf, what happens to my miserable few shares is unlikely to move markets.

But they did seem important to my new friend, ringing from a call centre somewhere in this country. Using the language of continuous news channels is evidently now a preferred way of selling personal financial services.

The "breaking news", he assured me, was to do with my shares.

There was a pause.

"And what," I asked, "is this breaking news?" Was it something, I wondered, that I ought to be sharing with colleagues in the newsroom?

"I'm afraid that I've not been given the green light to release that news yet," he said, sounding genuinely sorry. 

In that case, I started to point out, it's hardly breaking news, is it? More like hidden news. He was really sorry; he wished he could tell me; but if I agreed to have a brochure sent to me and then maybe talk to an adviser ... I muttered something about the Financial Services Act and that was the end of the call.

Perhaps it is inevitable that the vernacular of continuous news is used as part of everyday conversation without any apparent sense of irony.

Maybe it doesn't matter, and of course you could point out that at least it got my attention rather than having me terminate the conversation abruptly as is my habit with this type of call.

And maybe we shouldn't get too worked up. After all, we are told that news on mobiles is the next big thing, so we ought not be too surprised when call centres take that a bit too literally.

But don't be shocked when you get a call starting with the phrase 'and here are the headlines'.