It’s bye bye to reason when the list of ‘must-have’ Christmas toys from Hatchimals, Barbie to Elmo is revealed… stop playing us for fools
STOP all the clocks, cut off the telephone, prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone . . . the list of “must-have” toys for Christmas has been released.
This year, it’s a £59.99 Hatchimal, an interactive fluffy bird that hatches from its egg and, according to a wily PR/toy shops, demand for it is already “off the scale”.
Cue thousands of swivel-eyed desperadoes — commonly known as parents — standing disconsolately in the rain at 6am, waiting outside some toy store where, it’s merely rumoured not confirmed, they might have one in stock.
Or sitting, hunched and hollow-eyed, on their laptop, watching the eBay clock ticking down to 4am when some shady figure in China is selling one that just might, no guarantees, clear customs in time for Christmas.
We’ve all been here before, haven’t we?
I’m fond of telling my kids that all I ever got for Christmas was a satsuma, but of course my poor mother was plagued with my beseechings for a Chopper bike (denied), Tippy Tumbles (granted) and Ker-knockers (granted, but second-hand from someone who was selling them because they’d been branded dangerous.)
Then I had kids of my own and, despite the annual self-delusion of telling anyone who’ll listen that I’m not going to fall for such “commercial claptrap”, I always give in and join the not-so-merry throng elbowing their way to the holy grail of “you’re the best” mum or dad.
Which lasts about five minutes.
For my oldest daughter, I virtually prostituted myself to someone in the BBC press office to secure Po, the irritatingly elusive red Teletubby; gave cash to a hooded stranger in some back street for a Tamagotchi (which had died by Boxing Day because she forgot to feed it); bought bloody Beanie Babies with the fevered frequency of a crack addict and forked out the national debt of a small country for a Teksta robotic dog the following year.
So thank God she’s now grown up, moved out and just wants an Ikea gift card.
related stories
For my youngest, it started with “Tickle Me Elmo”, a toy she’d seen on TV and become obsessed with.
Invited by Hamleys to the latest release of this “must-have” toy in 2006, myself and other journalists were greeted at the door by the then boss of the iconic London store and, spotting my then three-year-old, he crouched down.
Him: “Good morning young lady, how are you?”
Her: “Where’s Homo?”
No, I’m not making that up.
The following year it was Igglepiggle, followed by Go Go Hamsters, the ruinously expensive Sylvanian Families, Badge It! and divorced Barbie (she comes with Ken’s stuff.)
Yes, I am making that last one up.
And between the two of them, I have bought enough flaming “Sea Monkeys” to sink a battleship — yet this supposed, instant “aqua-pet” never seemed to hatch.
So, mums, dads, repeat after me: This year, we will rise above the superficial hype and buy something, like, totes educayshunal for our children.
Oh, alright then. See you in the Hatchimal queue.
PANIC BUTTON
US President-elect Donald Trump has such an acute germ phobia that his staff even have to call lifts on his behalf.
A reassuring third-party buffer now that his finger is so perilously close to the nuclear button.
Louisa's joined the clone zone
WHEN the hugely talented Louisa Johnson first appeared on last year’s X Factor, she wore a T-shirt, ripped jeans and red bandana in her naturally wavy hair.
Fast forward a year and the eventual 2015 winner, still only 18, is promoting her new single and video with “her raciest look yet” – lace-up latex leggings and a bra top.
Sigh. Call me an old fart (form an orderly queue), but I much preferred her original, fresh-faced look.
Now, presumably at the hands of “stylists”, she’s morphed into yet another offering from the sausage machine of Ariana Grande/Rita Ora/Beyonce lookalikes.
I spy con trickery
ANOTHER day, another woman being fleeced out of her life savings by a “charming” conman she met on a dating website.
Or, in the (court) case of Zac Langley this week, multiple women.
To do so, he took on various aliases including “spy”, “radar maker” and “shipping magnate”.
Ladies, no one single and lonely is immune from the urge for romantic attention to puncture the nagging emptiness, but in the pursuit of a genuine relationship there are perhaps warning signs to look out for.
Primarily that if someone seems too good to be true, they probably are.
And chances are that if he “works for MI5” (an elusive tactic of the “if I told you where I have been for the past fortnight, I’d have to kill you” variety) or claims to be a shipping magnate, it’s far more likely that he actually works for MFI and collects fridge magnets.
POOR OLD MADONNA
She’s been outed as a 58-year-old by her veiny hands.
I sympathise. Currently undergoing various non-invasive, anti-ageing treatments (all in the name of science and to be reported on at a later date), I fear that my Gollum-like mitts will forever betray my true age of, ahem, 35.
The other day, I popped them under one of those Dyson hand driers and recoiled in horror as great folds of skin rippled back and forth like the dunes in Lawrence Of Arabia.
If you’ve never done that, I suggest you continue in that, er, vein and remain in ignorant bliss.
Old age sure ain’t for sissies.
For batter or for worse
WHEN Kayleigh Blunnie’s boyfriend Vincent Nicholson tried to stop her flirting with a stranger, she punched and kicked him so hard that he had to be put into a medically induced coma for his head injuries.
Sentencing Blunnie to two years in prison, a judge at Chelmsford Crown Court in Essex took the “exceptional course” of suspending it for two years so she could get married . . . to, er, Vincent.
I don’t know what’s dafter – the “justice” system . . . or him.
BREXITIS IS CATCHING
SOMEONE called Helen Hayes popped up this week to say: “I had somebody in my surgery last week who was in tears because of Brexit”.
At first, I thought she was a local GP who had identified a new malaise called Brexititis, but no – turns out she’s a Labour MP and was referring to a constituent.
Still, there’s plenty of it about, so subscribers to The Lancet should watch this space.
We can't all be Mary Berry
MARY BERRY says she has never eaten a takeaway and rarely eats out.
If I could cook like her then it would probably be the same story in our house.
But as I can’t, this is what happened last weekend when The Bloke (who can cook) wanted a night off.
Youngest: “Mum, what are you making for dinner?”
Me: “A reservation.”
TOO CLOSE TO HOME
THE new John Lewis Christmas ad showing the dog desperate to play on his owner’s trampoline has plenty of the aaaah factor.
Or, in our house, aaaaargh.
For it’s a painful reminder that, I kid you not, our delinquent Tibetan terrier actually ate the majority of our garden trampoline and remains incorrigibly bouncy to this day.