I discovered yesterday evening that I've got to be in Brighton on Friday night, for a birthday celebration. The trains back to London on a Friday appear to stop running at a ridiculously early time – presumably a piece of collusion between Southern Trains and hotel operators in East Sussex. Well, their dastardly plan worked a treat; I was literally forced to pay a visit to lastminute.com in an attempt to book a cheap double room.

The last time I did this we ended up in the West Pier Hilton, which – despite the associations with the name – is a hideous tower block which only just outdoes the West Pier itself in decrepitude. This time, surprise surprise, it was still by far the best deal. I booked it, and a couple of minutes later received a timely reminder of lastminute.com's endearing confirmation emails. They begin thusly:

You wanna piece of us? You've got it kiddo.

Like getting an all chocolate Kit Kat, your life has just been enhanced by exactly 10.5 times and you're now free to enjoy every lastminute.com.

Someone was actually employed to write the above sentences. And so, every time someone books a flight or a hotel, or buys a gadget or gizmo for Father's Day, they receive a confirmation which kicks off by sounding like an ineffectual gang leader from Hemel Hempstead, continues in a rambling, irrelevant fashion and ends in total confusion. No matter how matey lastminute.com would like to come across, they're not just selling products to alcopop-addled twenty-somethings who might enjoy this kind of drivel. I went to their site a few weeks ago to book a joint 60th birthday present for my mum and dad. My mother opened the confirmation email:

You wanna piece of us? You've got it kiddo.

I felt the urge to apologise to her on lastminute.com's behalf. All she wanted was the booking reference number and hotel voucher. Why not just say “Thank you for using lastminute.com”?

OK, you're probably thinking that I'm over-sensitive, I should spare any readers a rant about appalling corporate copywriting – of which there is an enormous amount – and direct my complaint to the company themselves. Well, I did, offering to edit their emails at a fairly reasonable charge. They're supposed to reply to emails within 24 hours; let's see what happens. By this time tomorrow, I might have a new job. Kiddo.