As a writer it’s easy to take for granted that people who aren’t journalists understand what happens when you’re asked to write something. So here’s how it works.

A news organisation rings up and asks you to do a piece. Obviously you say yes so they’ll tell you how much they’ll pay you, how many words they want and when by. They’ll also give you an idea of the feel of the piece. So in the case of an opinion piece they might tell you they want something that’ll irritate people enough to make a comment.

Now’s the fun bit. You think about what you want to say and scope out a rough outline. Sometimes you can’t think of a way to start the story so you begin in the middle and wait for an introduction to come. Other times you know instantly how it’s going to start and everything then slots into place.

Easy, right? Well it would be if there weren’t two fairly significant constraints. First you have a deadline. In the case of the price of petrol story http://us.cnn.com/2012/02/28/opinion/opinion-european-gas-prices/index.html, I was asked to write it just before midday and the deadline was 3pm the same day.

Second, you only have a certain number of words. To make something readable you need to cover more than one point. So you can’t drill into any single point in any great detail. The result is you cover a handful of points but none in too much depth. And time constraints generally mean you research and offer only the facts that back up your argument.

These aren’t excuses, they’re simply the rules of the game. And they result, hopefully, in a story that provokes thought and gives people plenty of scope to add their own opinion.

Regan and Carter, Hunt vs Lauda. It looks like the big screen will be stepping back to the 1970s in 2012.

Both these duos played a significant part in my life. It was Niki Lauda’s crash at the Nurburgring in 1976 that introduced me to motor racing. That a blond Brit went on to nick his world title cemented my love affair with the sport that continues to this day. The Sweeney was the first TV programme that I was allowed to stay up past the 9pm watershed to watch; my dad was a fan, fascinated by cop drama until he went to his grave. I’m always thankful he shared that with me.

Action in The Sweeney is gritty and plausible. Thaw and Waterman as Jack Regan and George Carter had a rapport that lent their off the cuff remarks credence and gave the action an authenticity that it might not have had. Even today it holds its head high as great drama. And it’s awesome watching Renault 16s being driven on their door handles.

Don’t think I have a problem with remakes. But when I saw the new Regan and Carter in a Ford Focus my heart sank. How’s George going to get out of the back of a small car? Don’t the producers realise having a driver in a Consul GT allowed Jack and George to light each others’ fags during a car chase; allowed George to sit rock solid in the back seat, even though the car was being driven like it was stolen.

Then we have Hunt vs Lauda. Someone very close to the project told me the script had been hammed up shockingly. Producers appear not to understand that the brilliant thing about the whole saga was its genuineness. Lauda really did come to with a priest giving him the last rites. Hunt really did get air hostesses into bed by saying: “Hello, I’m James Hunt. Do you?” The story doesn’t need beefing up. And Regan and Carter don’t need a flash Focus hot hatch. A Mondeo would do.

I fell into watching the original Italian Job not so long ago. Unlike many films, time has been kind to it. Remember the 2003 Mark Wahlberg Italian Job? No me neither. It’ll be the same with Hunt vs Lauda and The Sweeney if they’re not careful.

My neighbour recently had a fence put up. I admired it as I cycled past. About two hours later once I’d got home, realised my phone didn’t work, and spent hours on the phone to BT, I wanted to burn it down. My neighbour had done such a thorough job in erecting his fence he’d cut through the phone line to the rest of the village.

Not to worry, BT said, it’ll be fixed within three days. That was three working days so gave them until the following Wednesday. Nothing happened. I’d forlornly pick up the phone in the hope that I’d be greeted with more than silence. I wasn’t. Ringing BT was pointless. I did discover if you ring in the morning you get a British call centre. Call after lunch it’s Indian. But whoever I called just said it was going to be fixed in a couple of days, only with a different accent.

By the Friday, our ninth day with no phone I rang BT and was told the engineers were working on it. I walked down the road to be greeted by… absolutely nothing. When I suggested BT must have invisible engineers, the woman in India agreed with me. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so irritating. Fully wound up, I emailed Warren Buckley, BT’s MD for customer service. He, or whoever answers his emails, replied within minutes and astonishingly things started to move at a slightly less glacial pace.

The problem was the physical line is run by BT Openreach, a separate company to BT. And although I was supposedly being helped by BT’s executive engineering team, Openreach just lied to them too. It was farcical. Eventually they started work 13 days after the initial break. Service was finally restored two days later.

So what have I learnt following my 15 days with no phone line? Three things: If you want action, don’t bother calling Mumbai or wherever BT’s call centre is, go straight to the top man. Don’t believe Openreach; they talk nonsense. And life without the Internet was bizarrely relaxing.

I had to go to my mother’s house to get internet access during the day for my work. And as I could do nothing in the evenings, all I had as a pastime was watching TV. No Amazon, no eBay, no story research. In fact just like life used to be when there were red telephone boxes everywhere.