Quietly making fists in my pocket

There are times when having a telephone conversation with my father is like being back at work doing a remote technical support call. After ten minutes'gleaning bits and bobs and correlating them into sensible order, I'll talk it through just to confirm this is where we are and that'll be the point at which some tidbit that kicks the jigsaw asunder gets introduced into the conversation. It all gets sorted in the end but the stress levels aren't helped by my having to compete to be heard over his television while having the cat shouting down my other ear because she doesn't like the telephone.