055166k,
I too have normally received a good service from London Info when making private flights. I am not used to using their service in this way.
I can honestly say that it did not sound busy on frequency that day. I can also say that we WERE asked for an estimate to AMMAN, but this seemed to be for little reason in the end. We were not told by London Info to remain outside CAS. We were not given an airways clearance. WE gave our estimate to AMMAN and then some time later were told to freecall Cardiff Approach.
Again, I am probably just not used to this. It did however seem strange and while I never did think our flight plan had been canceled, it certainly felt like we were dumped at random back into the system to work from the ground up.