In common, I suspect with many others, I removed myself from the roads for much of the Christmas build-up by shopping online.

Of course, I merely replaced my pollution of the air and the highways with that created by the many drivers who delivered the plethora of parcels of Christmas joy to me so that I could then pass them on to others, or occasionally directly to those others, cutting me out of the equation entirely.

Most of them arrived on time. One or two are still clogging up someone’s van or warehouse and will hopefully turn up eventually.

But all of the companies concerned have emailed me asking for feedback.

I used to think it was quite charming that customer service was so important to them that they wanted to check that I was happy via a detailed questionnaire.

Now I am less sanguine about their motives. We are merely free customer research that can be used or ignored as the company chooses.

Of course, whereas they can rely on the fact that we will most certainly let them know if they let us down, we are unlikely to unilaterally send a glowing tribute to their ability to send us four pairs of thermal socks within the time frame promised and reasonably well packed.

I used to dish out my stars with careful and judicious consideration as requested, but am now more inclined to allow the internet (and more importantly myself) some time off.

This decision was hastened by several companies importuning me to rate stuff I have sent to third parties as gifts.

The last thing I am going to do is ring up the recipient and ask them all the questions about packaging, timeliness and appreciation of the gift itself, so that I can pass it on to the firm I bought it from.

So my first resolution for the New Year is to apply Occam’s very useful razor to requests from companies for feedback and simply let them know when it is not to my satisfaction.

So all of you suppliers of goods out there, please be assured that I am perfectly happy unless I contact you to the contrary.

Furthermore when I do so contact you, please deal with it as expeditiously as you do when you send out your requests for feedback, which often arrive in my inbox before the item itself.