Things I Will Not Rant About This Year: 2

Human Bedwarmers

This is the second thing that I will not rant about this year: idiot inventions that should have been thought through before being given a massive marketing campaign to the general public.

I refer, of course, to late-breaking news that Holiday Inn is using 'human bed warmers' to warm up your bed before you sleep.

Telegraph story here

This is an utterly moronic idea, no doubt dreamed up by a half-wit village idiot who managed somehow to turn on his TV and successfully watch a session of Dragon's Den on TV.

Propelled to actually engage his cranium in something other than wall-banging, he began to form the dusty vestiges of some images in his head.

"What's happening?" He asked himself. He was thinking. For the first time in his what barely passed for a life, his limp brain began to work. "I could come up with an idea and get some money!"

He looked around his room for some inspiration, although he didn't know what that word meant. Kettle... he could invent a kettle that filled itself with water... no, that would take too much knowledge. His cat... he could invent a cat that fills kettles with water - no, no, cats hate water.

His eyes smarted with the pain of trying to think for more than 11 seconds. He closed his eyes and decided to get into bed, exhausted by the mental exertion.

His sheets were cold. Then it hit him! The cat had thrown the kettle at his head. "Owch" he said, rubbing his forehead with his cold hand. "My bed is so cold! Why can't I warm it up?" There was one warm patch on the bed where he'd wet himself, and a dry warm patch next to him. It felt good. "this is where the cat was sleeping! If only I had lots of cats to warm my whole bed." he mused.

Eureka! "My cat could warm up people's beds for them. Wouldn't they be pleased?" And in his excitement, he ran around the room wetting himself.

He rang the BBC. "I've got a great idea for Dragon's Den!" he shouted.

"The time sponsored by Accurist will be 3, 45 and 6 seconds precisely... beep beep beep".

After four hours of waiting for the lady to stop telling him the time, he decided to write to them instead. He found a crayon and a piece of paper and managed to remember to address it and put a stamp on it. It was a day of firsts.

Some time later, he was faced by the Dragons.

"You're a bleedin' lunatic. I'm out"

"As a woman, I like cats, but I don't want a bed full of cats. Does your cat have fleas? How would the cat stay in the bed? Have you thought this through? I'm out."

"I, too, will be out, but first I want to humeeeliate you publicly for several minutes."

"Sounds cheap. I like that. Cheap is good. But I'm allergic to cats. Could you yourself warm up the bed?"

"I suppose so..."

And the dream was born. With Peter Jones' career advertising cheap car insurance on the rocks after being caught with a snow leopard and a line of coke in the Holiday Inn, he needed to find something to get himself back in the game. He rang up Holiday Inn.

"I've found a way to repay you the loss of your reputation. Human bed warmers".

****

Is there anything more dunce than getting people wearing all-in-one body suits made of towels to roll around in your sheets for 5 minutes?

There are so many things wrong with this I'll just have to list my top five:

1) The point of going away is so that someone else makes your bed and you have fresh, clean, cool, ironed, unspoilt linen sheets to slip into.

2) Hot water bottles

3) ROHYPNOL (drink this while we warm your bed - I don't think so)

4) Who farted? Wasn't me... "All part of the warming service, sir."

5) This wasn't what I expected from room service.

JUST NO. NO NO NO NO NO. Holiday Inns, your bed warming service is the biggest waste of PR money you will have ever spent. You are foolish beyond all foolishness. Someone's head (rest) should roll for this.

And you are very lucky I am not ranting about anything this year, or you really would have known what I think.

How To Get Free Stuff (Part 2)

Philadelphia

For those of you who love a cheesy snack, there are TWO fabulous offers on the Philadelphia website Click here

You can get 50p off a normal-sized tub of the stuff if you do a very short survey; you can also get 30p off a tub of splendips - a great snack or lunch-on-the-go.

They both work well on PCs, but if you are on a Mac, they will work best in Safari as Firefox won't print them out on the MaCoupon downloader.

How to Get Free Stuff (part 1)

Broke?

Can't afford to feed the cat, let alone your teenagers?

Then don't worry!

There are so many excellent offers out there in the wide world, so if you are feeling the pinch after Christmas - and like me, you won't get paid until the end of the month - then take a look at these offers to get Free Stuff.

For many of these, you will need to install the MacCoupon Printer software, but this is free. It means the bar codes will print out properly so you can use them in stores.

Free 100g Milka chocolate bar
Milka Chocolate Bar
You have to play a little game online, but if you go to the website and stick with the game (it takes less than a minute), you will get a voucher for a free bar of chocolate. The birdsong and buzzing bee noises are a little annoying, so best do this at home!
Click here for details: Milka

Things I Will Not Rant About This Year

Angry old woman
Things I Will Not Rant About This Year (part one)

1) Slow women who leave it until the last possible second to search down their voluminous handbags for their travel passes, thereby clogging up the ticket barriers during rush hour.

2) Slow women who have no spacial awareness when walking on the underground/going up stairs/loitering at the bottom/top of escalators, mouths half-open, catching flies.

3) Women who read the two above posts and decided to get on their feminist high horses and ride off in all directions. Let's face it, I am a woman and I notice that 90% of all corporeal delays in traversing the underground are caused by women and their lack of spacial awareness. Men are not so slow, nor do they lose their passes in great big handbags.

4) People who watch you running for the bus and, instead of holding the bus, merely smile and say 'shame' when you get to the stop.

5) People who ask me 'is that your cat?' just after I have called him, he has come running towards me, and has climbed onto my back.

NO, this is some random cat that for some reason likes the smell of my tuna paste deodorant, and can't get enough of it. Sometimes it takes me four hours to unpick his claws from my neck.

6) Men who cannot commit to a relationship. (This might be one resolution I have to break)

7) Random phone calls from PRs asking if I've received the press release. If I were interested in any way, shape or form in the fact that your poxy little Midlands-based trading firm has hired a new information technician, then a) it would have been the slowest news week on record b) I would have called you. If you need to talk to someone, please, call the Samaritans, because they care a whole lot more than I do.

8) People who ask a question, and interrupt you half-way through with a 'so what you're saying is'... before telling you something completely different from what you were going to say. LISTEN AND LEARN, people. LISTEN AND LEARN.

9) People who make false judgements about something you have said or done.

10) People who tell you 'you need a break, you need some "you time"', before asking you immediately when you can next come round and see them/when they can come round and be fed by you etc etc. IF I WANTED TO SHARE MY 'ME' TIME I WOULD GO ON BIG BROTHER. Any free time that I get to myself I want BY myself, without having to answer the phone 24/7. If you want to see me, book me in advance (this might also explain why point 6 is going to be increasingly difficult for me).

11) People who assume that just because you have a cat, therefore you hate dogs. This was a reason why one bloke did not follow up on the first date, because he liked dogs. I love dogs!! I live in a flat in the middle of a city, dumbnuts. Might that be the reason I don't have an Irish Wolfhound? Loser.

12) I will not call people 'loser'.

13) In addition, I will not rant about:
Clusters of foreign exchange students clogging up the streets at lunchtime, gazing in Oxford Street shop windows and preventing me from enjoying my 32-second lunch break;
Old people who push in front of you to try to get on the bus before 9am;
People who don't add up their shopping and get to the queue in front of you and then can't pay for a couple of items (I've usually paid for them, unless I recognise them from the time before. Losers);
People who think washing is optional;
People who gossip;
Big Brother;
Any reality TV shows;
People who moan about the weather;
Hollyoaks (is there ever a day when it ISN'T on?);
People who think using a guitar in church is akin to slaughtering a goat on the communion table and daubing the walls of the creche with its warm blood;
People who slaughter goats on the communion table;
People who ask my advice, then ignore it to their detriment and I have to restrain myself from saying 'I told you so';
People who say 'I told you so';
Avocado sneaking its way into sandwiches and salads;
Rocket Leaves - EVERYWHERE, on EVERY MENU.

I've reached an impasse, but this list is no means exhaustive.

Happy new year.

RIP Baby Girl Patches

Patches

I remember when you were just a wee kitten, bossed around by two older female cats. You snuck into my room each night and slept on my bed. Last time I saw you, you were playing 'boo' and having a great time of it. Sleep well, little girl. I'll miss you x

Wither the arrows?

Andy Brough

There are so many headlines about which way the markets will go. '2010 will be a volatile year'; 'UK deficit warning from City economists'; 'Europe's chief executives see sluggish 2010'; 'Optimism rises for recruitment'... and so on ad infinitum.

I am reminded of a sage City fund manager, one Andy Brough, who had evidently had enough of personal finance journalists ringing him up to ask him his take on the market (this was back in 2004). His comment still stands in the annals of FT history:

'Look, we believe the markets could go up. But then again, they could go down. If not, they might go sideways.'

Quite.