Stay with me on this ....
- The mail order catalogues
which seem to accompany every newspaper and magazine are an amazing
source of invaluable items for the home and garden.
For just £19.99 it is possible to buy a wall clock on which each hour is represented by a different British bird. As the hour is reached, you hear the song of the bird to which the hand is pointing. What joy! An optional light sensor ensures though that it won't chirp at night. For only £23.99 it is possible to have one featuring European birds instead. Batteries are not included.
- For only £12.99 you can purchase an incredibly strong fold-away stool which opens out to add an extra 10" to your height. This is obviously useful if you are going out with a tall girl or boy-friend, but its primary purpose must be to prevent there being any danger to your health or safety by your using step ladders. Clearly, if you wished to go any higher, you should engage an approved scaffolder.
The ‘True Sleep' watch gives you or your partner a good nights sleep. Using medically tested ‘TENS' electrical nerve stimulation, the ‘True Sleep' is sound activated to recognise a snoring sound of 60db or more at which it triggers a gentle safe impulse which stimulates the snorer to change his (or her) sleeping position without waking. At £19.99, it is easy to use, and avoids the need for pills, chemicals or surgery. Of course giving it as a present may trigger a divorce but, hey, problem solved!
There's nothing better than a gentle game of summer evening boules - but isn't it annoying when the evening draws in and it's too dark to play? With 8 heavy boules (in four vibrant colours) and a jack, each containing a flashing LED that can be sen from over 50 yards away, it won't happen any more! This battery operated set even includes a tape measure, measuring string and carry case. To purchase this, quote - 63517 flashing boules. Remarkably, the set is only £24.99 (batteries included).
And so we return to time. This time to a clock which I saw in a shop. Its novelty was that in place of numbers there were spaces to hold photographs of your loved-ones. So you would be able to say that the time was exactly Auntie Jemima or that it was now half past cousin John. Clearly, though this clock should be combined with the features of the Bird song clock so that when the hand pointed to each relative, you would hear the sound of their voices. Such as ‘I hope you're keeping well', or ‘cheers', or in the case of the archetypal Jewish mother - ‘Why do you never ring your mother already?' - Although in istelf so wonderfully naff, I thought that it would be good to subvert the whole concept - I could create a work of post-modern self-referential irony by taking photographs of different clock faces and then cutting out and inserting the numbers in the spaces on the photo-frame clock.
- In fact, I plan to have one clock with numbers and another with the pictures of the cousins, uncles and aunts. I will then submit them both for the next Turner Prize under the title ‘Absolute and Relative Time'.
- Sorry to have wasted yours ....