Jingle Bell Shlock

With Christmas fast approaching, here's my top 5 most disappointing pressies from yesteryear:

5. Talking Action Man: He talked for about three hours then one of my monstrously ugly cousins turned him into Plain Old Action Man by snapping the draw string that operated his voice. F*cking bitch.

4. Compendium of Games: A good idea in principle, the execution in our house was fatally flawed given the poor quality paper-thin cardboard pieces in the set purchased. You could have made a sturdier set from a Corn Flake packet. Nine Men's Morris just isn't the same when the least exhalation of breath will see the "men" caught in a force nine gale.

3. Mastermind: Sweet FA to do with the program of the same name other than the picture of a black chair on the box. A simple process of elimination, this game was deeply, deeply boring.

2. Kerplunk: A jar, some marbles, and a million cocktail stick. F*cking genius. Literally seconds of fun.

1. Pocket calculator: Now in fairness this one was my own fault. My best pal at the time had just got a digital watch for his birthday (this was an LED watch, so that gives you an inkling of how long ago it was) and I thought - in the best tradition of oneupmanship between friends - it would be cool to get a calculator for Chrimbo. Now in those days these things cost the GDP of a medium size African nation (and were about the same size too) , so this was all I got that year. What was I thinking? Never mind that; what were my parents thinking? Parents are supposed to protect their children from bad decisions like this! It's tantamount to neglect!!!

And just to balance up all that disappointment here's the best pressy I was destined never to receive (which is still a disappointment now that I think about it):

Super Flight Deck: This looked pant wettingly exciting in the advert. My desire for SFD was palpable but it never did turned up under my tree. Long since out of production, you can still get them on eBay, but I've suppressed my desire to own one as I have a nagging suspicion it might actually be crap. In life it is sometimes better to worship from afar and maintain that little flutter of excitement you get from unrequited love, rather than declare your feelings and expose yourself to the everyday drudge of cheap plastic reality.