Sometimes I despair of the human race.

Yesterday morning I was lazing in bed when I noted an advertising supplement that came with the newspaper, called something like Christmas Essentials — 64 pages of totally stupid gift ideas.

Admittedly some of the featured items were okay, but it also included some of the most useless, yet expensive things known to man.

Do people really spend $4000+ on a barbecue? (Actually I saw some costing $8000+ in another catalogue recently.) What about $80 for a sweatshirt for a dog? Or $190 for a dog bed?

And don’t get me started on the televisions costing five figures. It’s almost obscene the amounts of money some people apparently spend on things.

The antithesis of this was another insert in the paper — a catalogue of things you can buy to help the underprivileged of the world. People who may not have ever seen a TV, let alone a nineteen thousand dollar one.

So instead of buying someone a crap Christmas present that they’ll hate and chuck away unused in January, the money can go towards something of real value to people.

If anybody out there is thinking of buying me something this Christmas, and they don’t know what to buy, I’d lean towards the latter booklet. Please, buy a village a pig or a bucket or a hygenic toilet on my behalf.