We need a larger letterbox at home. November is the merry month of mail order mayhem\u2014the time of year when every supermarket, weekend newspaper, toy retailer and garden store produces its list of special Christmas offers. Tons of glossy paper flooding over our door mats and gigabytes of colourful data glowing in our email boxes, and they\u2019re all trying to sell us stuff for Christmas that we don\u2019t actually want, let alone need. And if I don\u2019t want it, why on earth are they supposing that my relations or friends might want it instead? Would my youngest niece really benefit from a swaying upright plastic cobra with flashing eyes for Christmas (\u2018Fun For All The Family\u2019)? Who do they take me for\u2026 a snake fetish charmer? Perhaps both my sons are longing for that battery operated tea and coffee maker complete with LED alarm clock and portable humidifier (\u2018You Never Thought It Could Be SO Useful\u2019)! No, indeed I would never have thought so…
\nWould my aged aunt appreciate receiving a luminous loo seat cover so she can find her way there in the dark (\u2018Never Get Caught Again\u2019)? Actually she might, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s very tactful of me to present it as a Christmas gift to joyously remind her of her slight problem in front of all the family. However, owing to the success of the Vampire Diaries and current teen movie culture, I could be tempted to buy three sets of sharp vampire teeth for my nephews in the vein hope that they might all bite each other to oblivion.
\nWhere do they get this stuff from? Presumably there\u2019s a large factory in South Korea or downtown Shanghai with a long production line containing an endless supply of edible underpants, heat sensitive cufflinks, mini TV remote controls disguised as 9 inch long pink cockroaches and other exotic junk. Can you imagine their weekly new product marketing meetings:
\n\u201cOk, everyone, settle down. What\u2019s new?\u201d
\n\u201cWell sir, I\u2019ve got an idea for a rubber camel that lays peanuts and olives out of its bottom\u2026\u201d
\n\u201cGreat! I shall call it the \u201cPerfect Party Pooper\u201d! Lets make 3 million of them\u2014delivery by Tuesday. Next\u2026\u201d
\n\u201cHow about the Electronic Pepper Mill with Built-in Spanish Phrase Book and Barbeque Firelighter\u2026\u201d
\n\u201cGreat idea\u2014\u201cLearn And Burn!\u201d Let\u2019s do 2 million of them in fluorescent green and another 2 million in silver plastic to be sold as the Deluxe Version\u2014both for the UK market. Brits will buy anything that combines cookery and holidays and they can always Buy One and Get One Free! Batteries not included of course\u2026\u201d
\nYou see? We\u2019re already known for being a soft touch for most types of useless gadget. Why anyone should want a single one of these items\u2014let alone two of them\u2014is hard to fathom. Of course they\u2019re trying to sell you more of the same festive flotsam that they\u2019ve still got stored away from last year. Most of it\u2019s only been repackaged and re-stickered for 2011 (\u2018New For The Family This Christmas\u2019 etc) in a desperate attempt to shift redundant stock, but you can only sell so many pepper mills (with or without extra language learning capabilities).
\nThen there\u2019s the item on page 60 of a particular brochure advertising an \u201cI.E.D.\u201d\u00a0 I kid you not\u2026 I thought this particularly explosive item was fortunately only available in faraway places like Afghanistan or Iraq, but I see here that it can be found in a UK Christmas catalogue. Luckily, in this case, I.E.D. stands for Inflatable Electric Dolphin. Phew! So, that\u2019s OK then\u2026
\nAnother thing\u2026 have you noticed how many of these items can only be written about with Initial Capital Letters? They have to leap out at you off the page to be noticed. A battery operated owl noise doorbell sounds sort of boring and ordinary. However, an \u201cElectronic Digital Owl Hoot Horror (\u2018Amuse All Your Friends\u2019\u2014\u2018Be The Life And Soul of Any Party!\u2019) is perhaps more sellable. I say \u2018perhaps\u2019 but personally I might have preferred the 20,000 Volt Electric Death-Ray Doorbell to blast unwelcome visitors to a crisp. Party pooper? Moi?
\nAnd there are some products that probably started off as a popular joke and sold so well that someone somewhere decided to go completely over the top with them. Last year it was Sudoku, but the chief culprit for gift overkill for 2011 must be the Cuddly Meerkat. Formerly known as a nice little animal from the Kalahari Desert that stands on its hind legs and looks kinda cute, this small mammal has captured the imagination of an entire nation from its appearance in a series of TV adverts. You can get candles, car stickers, books, DVDs, kitchen cutlery, door stops, IPhone cases and cuddly toys all in meerkat flavour. None of them look remotely natural\u2014more like grizzled rats with ear to ear sickly grins.
\nWho thinks up such entirely awful products as the nodding 3 foot Meerkat with a lopsided wide plastic smile for your garden (\u2018Cute and Adorable Lawn Pets\u2019)? Are they kidding? And there\u2019s not just one of the wretched things\u2014you can buy a whole Meerkat Adams family of them leering at you from beside the hedge. Is this supposed to be a restful rural addition to your rose bed or a terrifying invasion of leering alien life forms? Simple? You bet\u2026 Yes, I can feel an attack of the Scrooges coming on. Bah Humbug! After all, \u2018tis the season to be shoddy\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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