As you'll remember, I am rubbish at shopping. I could buy stuff if I wanted to, but I never actually want anything, so I never buy anything. And so I set up the retail therapy project, three weeks ago, to see if you could effect some kind of cure. Plus I quite fancied a decent birthday present.
I invited you lot to tell me what I wanted. First you decided that I wanted something electrical or gadgety, then you nominated some electrical gadgety things I might like, and finally you voted on the electrical gadgety thing I should end up buying for myself. And today, with four days to go before my birthday, you have spoken. The votes have been counted. Thankfully it's not a tie, not quite, after looking like it might be a tie for rather too long. And I now know what I'm going to spend that £100 on...
(4=) In joint last place, with a single vote each, the Propavor Steam Iron and the Logitech Optical keyboard and mouse. That's quite a relief, because the iron was clearly a joke present, while my current keyboard and mouse sit on different levels of my computer workstation so the line-of-sight technology probably wouldn't have worked anyway.
(3) In third place, with exactly a quarter of the votes, the Clear-door cooler. As some of you correctly deduced, a fridge for wine bottles would be as useful to me as the proverbial chocolate teapot. There's enough space in my fridge for at least twenty bottles of wine, and the fact there is enough space for twenty bottles of wine in my fridge tells you that I have no need for twenty cold bottles of wine anyway. What do you think I am, an alcoholic? Clearly not.
(2) In second place, with just one last-minute vote less than the winner, it's the Voice Commander Remote Control. Blimey that was close. I very nearly ended up with something to talk to. As one voter noted, I might need something to talk to now that my 'best friend/drinking buddy/on-line hour by hour support and general validator' has just left the country, but it was not to be. Plus I find that small black plastic boxes aren't quite so good at telling jokes, offering advice and smiling back.
(1) So (fanfare) the winner is (or rather the winners are) the Flip and Faze Tumbler lights. I will, by the weekend, be the proud owner of a light brick that turns itself on and off when tumbled, and a light brick that sits there gently pulsing from one colour to the next. The Mathmos shop in Old Street isn't too far away from here, so I won't have to wait around for weeks for mail order delivery like I might have had to do with some of the other presents. Sorted.
But, if you remember, the main focus of this project wasn't to buy something, but to want to buy something. How did I do? How did you do at unleashing my latent consumerism? How do I feel about adopting a couple of plastic lights? And what of the much-vaunted portable global positioning device (GPS) that someone nominated five days too late for inclusion on the shortlist? I'll tell you tomorrow...
The retail therapy project (final result)
