The Go Compare ad featuring the opera singer generated the most complaints – 1008 – about advertising in 2012. This however was easily topped by the 2,200 complaints make to the BBC last week, about the mumbled dialogue in their costume drama Jamaica Inn (Tip: if you record it you can keep playing it back till you can make out what is said, ditto for sub-titles that flash off before you can read them. And recording means you can fast forward through all the ads, including Go Compare)

According to a report in Metro us Brits are the Europe’s biggest complainers about advertising, with more than 31,000 complaints being made in 2012 about 19,000 ads, according to the Advertising Standards Authority. And it’s not just ads that generate the gripes. Bankers Barclays received 309,000 complaints in the second half of 2013, with Lloyds getting 256,000. Complaints about energy companies rocketed so far this year by 224%, with 3,277 in the first three months of 2013 (17,960 in the year) and 10,600 in the first three months of 2014.

Broadband providers BT received the largest number of complaints – 32 per 100,000 customers in the last three months of 2013 – with EE receiving 29 per 100,000.

Jasper Griegson, author of The Complete Complainer: How To Complain And Get Results advises to be funny and not abusive, to write a letter to the organisation’s chief executive by name and never the customer services department and to commend for good service as well as complain about the bad