ONE of the disadvantages of dealing with bigger, more remote companies and institutions is the “tick-box culture”, where instead of listening to people and seeing if their needs can be met employees have to check if the “customers” have negotiated a series of prescribed hurdles before anything can be done for them.

Sure, sometimes we need clear and precise rules, but it seems to me, particularly since I started acting on various issues on behalf of my elderly parents, that this practice far too often leads to inflexibility bordering on the ridiculous.

I had to tick quite a few boxes before I was able to legally act for my parents, and I can understand having to prove my status fairly carefully when dealing, say, with their building society. Their staff had to tick boxes, but did so in a sensible and balanced way.

What’s become increasingly onerous is having to establish the same level of proof almost every time I contact any body my parents have dealings with.

The most infuriating instance came when I had to send a weighty bunch of documents to a power company just so I could ask them why they had changed my parents’ electricity tariff, then received a mildly condescending response asking for more personal details “for security reasons”.

You’ll have guessed that the required information was in the documentation I sent the company. The whole point was they were supposed to check those papers, but I suspect they just put them on file, ticked the box, and only read my covering note.

I also had to travel across Yorkshire to present various forms of ID to another company to satisfy rules to combat money laundering, though this firm had dealt with my parents for 40 years and none of the financial transactions it dealt with involved me personally; again, a rule too far if you ask me.

Some of this would be solved if organisations looked after customers a bit better, but I also have another idea to improve matters for the public. I haven’t quite thought it through yet, but basically if any rule-making organisation (such as the Government, councils or the EU) felt they really must put more hurdles in our way, they’d also be obliged to ease the problems caused to ordinary people.

Taking the money-laundering example, the authorities would provide an official means for people to conveniently and cheaply prove their ID for anyone who legitimately needed it, say by dropping into a local council or police office. If that caused the authorities inconvenience, maybe they’d think more carefully about which boxes they make us tick.

• IN A dismal period for our sports teams, perhaps the most shocking experiences befell the England rugby league and Ireland rugby union sides. Both lost agonisingly late in their big games against their New Zealand counterparts in almost bizarrely similar circumstances, with a black-clad figure diving to the left of the posts and a conversion following to win in the dying seconds of both matches.

The home players had ticked every box for commitment, power and skill – but not the one about hanging on the bitter end. A harsh fate, but the cruel competition of sport helps to make it such compelling drama.

• WHICH brings me to Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary episode, which was hailed as a multinational triumph though, Strictly speaking, it didn’t actually gain Saturday’s night biggest UK TV audience.

It also, for me, managed to be far too portentous and overly jokey at the same time, and had a plot which tried to do too much then left plotlines hanging in the air with near feckless abandon. I thought it lost its way almost completely partway through, though it did have John Hurt and a nice surprise appearance by Tom Baker.

But maybe I’m being a bit dim, because this was a “TV event”, a jamboree that couldn’t really be judged by the normal rules of entertainment. I guess it ticked the boxes for hype, special effects, innumerable in-jokes and references to the programme’s long history. If we wanted compelling drama we could always try watching some sport.