Peter Rhodes on a new project, some puzzling quotes and which is better, the Knowledge or Dad-nav?

We are planning a new room divider to prevent warm air vanishing up the stairwell and leaving our ground floor perishing cold. Getting a reasonable price for the job is a nightmare; we have consulted four firms and their prices are bewildering.

To avoid embarrassment I'll express their quotes in the unit of currency I unveiled a couple of weeks ago, the one based on how many of these articles I have to write to pay a bill – the Column. Thus, the four room-divider estimates, from the cheapest to most expensive, work out at: 48 columns, 80 columns, 112 columns and 140 columns.

We have declined all four. Incidentally, to the reader who wrote to claim he'd calculated the actual cash value of one column, thanks for your interest but you're miles out. More's the pity.