A few months back I told you the sorry story of how a certain bank persecuted a friend of mine who had been made redundant and was suffering from anxiety and depression as a result of being out of work for the first time.

Just to recap, the bank, who she had been with all her working life, but which I can’t identify, apart from telling you that it has a big fat, greedy X in it’s name, piled a load of bank charges onto her account and sent her a stream of letters telling her to pay up quick or else.

This bank used to have an irritating little bespectacled man doing its ads. Things have moved on. It now has an irritating little podgy man with a punchable face smiling inanely in its window above the slogan which reads: “A little extra help.”

And you must have seen their incredibly irritating TV advertising campaign -  that moronic radio station thing with the vacuous woman singing ‘isa isa baby.’ It’s enough to make you kick the TV down the stairs.

Got it yet? Well, we shall look in detail at what the phrase  “a little extra help” means later, because I’ve done an in-depth investigation into it. But first, I thought you might like to know about the turn of events that led directly to that investigation.

As you may know, I do the odd bit of acting and general standing around, hob-knobbing with the likes of Johnny Depp and Clint Eastwood. Well, a few months back, at the very moment that I was discussing the latest disgusting letter from bank X with my lady friend, a text message came through from my agent, saying he had set up an audition for me.   

Wow! I was so underwhelmed I had to lie down. You see, I go to so many of these useless things, that I paid it no attention and just returned a text message saying that yes, I was free to attend yet another weedkiller ad casting for  Albanian TV.

But when I read the text message properly later, guess what, I realised that, by some bizarre twist of fate, the ad was for Bank X....

Now I really did need to lie down. If I got it, the money was good. Very good. Good enough to buy me several cases of pigeon poison. What was I to do?  Well, every man has his price and I stood to make a possible £9,000 if I got the part.

I would rather live in a box under a bridge  with the pigeons scratching around for rejected fried chicken debris..

However... having reflected on the matter, I decided to attend the casting after all. What harm would it do? It would keep my agent happy, and give me a chance to spy on the enemy. And I would give a ridiculous performance that would make sure they didn’t offer me the part.

When I arrived , I was handed a sheet of paper with the  outline of what the ad was about. Hmm, very interesting. It was supposed to be a radio station where the bank’s employees worked, and was meant to convey “the humanity” of bank X.

So if you haven’t seen the TV ad, or the slogan plastered all over bus stops and billboards, lets just take a look at what the “humanity” of bank X and “A little extra help” actually means.

1) Respond to the news that a lifelong, loyal customer has just been made redundant by showering them with endless bank charges.

2) Send them a string of letters threatening legal action unless they pay the total amount immediately. Tell them they must call the bank on an 0845 number (20p a minute or more) to prevent legal action being taken.

3) Put this vulnerable, anxious, depressed person on an unreasonable payment plan which they can hardly manage, and when they somehow manage to keep to it by existing on a diet of boiled eggs and baked beans, write a cold impersonal letter, telling them they have defaulted on the agreement and will be taken to court unless they pay the full amount immediately.

4) When a friend of the customer, rings up on her behalf, having previously been authorised by her, refuse to speak to him.

5) Put all your staff on regular intensive moron training courses to keep them up to speed.

So, this is just a brief summery of Bank X, its humanity and how it gives its customers “A little extra help.” Wonderful. Well done. keep up the good work.

Phil Zimmerman is resident comic every Friday Downstairs at the Drayton. Next show, Tonight: Edinburgh preview from Mock The week’s Jack Whitehall. www.philzimmerman.co.uk .