Saturday 27 October 2012

Silly gifts

Well, it's that time of year again. Silly gifts in catalogues.

I believe there are two kinds of inventions; the kind where someone sees a need and seeks to invent something to satisfy it (eg the wheel), and the kind where some wily entrepreneur wants to make money out of desperate shoppers at Christmas.

Above, are two of my favourites for this year from the latter cateogry. The top one is a set of features you can stick to a tree, to make it look....well, ridiculous, actually. I happen to think trees are beautiful, and they don't need faces at all, but who am I to dictate to people who take pleasure in these things? The second is an "anti-snoring device". Man snores and wakes woman up. Woman playfully reaches for little red fist on a stick and bops him on the nose with it. Then, presumably, they both share a jolly good laugh. Hilarious, or what?

If you fancy either of these, I can tell you where to buy them.

There. That's a couple of difficult uncles/aunts/cousins solved this Christmas, then. Phew!

18 comments:

  1. While I can imagine that some children would like seeing the trees in their parents' garden having faces (the novelty would last at least 10 minutes!), the anti-snoring device is too daft for words, really! Still, it must have been fun for the models posing for this picture.

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    1. I've always found a good poke in the ribs works well, and it's free!

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  2. I have a friend who used to compile a list of the most bizarre things catalogues offered. They were pretty sane by today's standards. I presume that he gave up doing it when there were more silly than sensible things in the catalogues.

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    1. One of our all time favourites was a little trolley to wheel your houseplants from A to B. This begs so many questions I wouldn't know where to start! I should add that the trolley was only a few inches high.

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  3. Well, that's two of the silliest I've seen so far!

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  4. I think I will give both of those a miss, thanks!

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    1. I just hope you don't live to regret it, Joanne...

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  5. I saw Advent calendars for cats and for dogs recently - though none for guinea pigs and rabbits, but no doubt that gap in the market will be plugged next year.

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  6. Crackers! As in bonkers not Christmas.

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  7. My husband doesn't snore and I've never seen a tree I thought would look better with a face on it ... still not everyone is like me.

    btw, I have an award for you over on my blog, Frances.

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  8. I'm giving you the award too, Frances!

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  9. More rubbish for landfill, or these novelties will end up as junk in the loft to be sorted through at some future stage. Spare the relatives and don't buy any of them.

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