Category Archives: Stuff

04/05/2011 · 3:31 pm

“You’re through to Lloyds TSB, how can we anger you today?”

If you’re going abroad and intend to use your debit or credit card, the banks advise that you tell them before you go. This is so that when their software detects a deviation from your normal spending pattern, they’ll know the reason.

They don’t advise you by phone or letter or in ads, of course. You won’t see it printed on your statement. In fact they keep the advice pretty much to themselves, until you get home and complain that your card was unaccountably refused when you tried to buy a rail ticket in Segovia, for example. That’s when they advise you.

Next time, they say, you should inform us when you intend to go abroad. Thanks a bunch, you say. But you remember the advice and, next time you’ve got an overseas trip coming up, you set about giving the bank a call. Which is what I did the other week.

You have a cunning plan. You just don’t know what it is yet

For the purposes of this story, let’s pretend you’re a criminal – go on, let’s – and you intend to defraud a bank using my credit card. In fact, let’s make it even more interesting by pretending that you’ve also got hold of me. You’re holding me in your evil lair, bound and helpless and ready to divulge all the security details of my credit card. This is, after all, the sort of scenario the banks must have in mind when they devise their stringent security procedures.

So. You’ve got me, you’ve got my card and you’ve got a phone. It isn’t strictly accurate to say you’ve also got the beginnings of a plan, because you haven’t. In fact, you haven’t a fucking clue how you’re going to go about defrauding the bank. This explains why you didn’t just walk into Currys and buy loads of things with plugs on the end of them or visit the nearest cashpoint armed with my PIN. Instead of these obvious options, you call the number on the back of the credit card. It’s entirely plausible that all sorts of frauds start that way. Isn’t it? LloydsTSB evidently thinks so.

Off to a bad start

You call the number and listen to the options, none of them being particularly appropriate to the scheme you haven’t hatched yet. In fact, the final option tells you that if you want to talk about your credit card, you have to call a different number entirely. Eh? So why wasn’t this the number featured on the back of the card? Never mind. You call this new number. You’re gonna get rich!

The master criminal gets to work

When the automated phone service asks you to key in the credit card number, you’re all prepared. Tap tap tap tap. Same with the security number. Tap tap tap. This is so easy! Then it asks you to key in my date of birth. You prod me with a stick. Ow! I tell you, and you key it in. A human comes to the phone and greets you by name.

“Hello Mr Newmalden, you’re through to LloydsTSB, how can I help you?”

You’re in! Time to enact the crime of the century.

“Hi there. Well it’s just that I’m going abroad soon, and I believe you advise customers to alert you beforehand.”

You idiot! Why the fuck did you say that? Call yourself a criminal? How on earth do you think saying that will make you any richer or buy you more stuff? It sounds like the single most implausible crime in the history of criminality. But that doesn’t stop it setting off an alarm in the call centre lady’s head. Ah, the old ‘I’m going abroad’ ruse. She won’t fall for that one too easily.

“I see. I’ll just have to run through a few security questions with you.”

What? More security? No matter. You get ready with the stick.

“Could you give me the third and fifth characters of your password, please?”

“Sure. The third and fifth characters of my password, you say?”

I blurt them out without the need for any prodding.

“It’s c and j”, you say. You’re driving a bulldozer through the bank’s so-called security!

“And are there any other account holders on this card?”

“Any other account holders?”

I shake my head.

“No.”

“OK. What was the last balance payment you made to the card?”

You repeat the question, and I tell you that I paid the entire balance off.

“He, I mean I paid the full amount”, you say.

“Yes, but what was the amount?”

“Er, the amount, let’s see…”

You prod me with the stick, but I don’t know the actual figure. I think it was around £700.

“It was about £700.”

“No! I want the ACTUAL AMOUNT!”

You prod, jab and thwack me with the stick, but it won’t help. I’m tied up in a master criminal’s secret lair, not sitting at my desk at home. You give up with me and resort to guesswork.

“£710? £714.28?”

“Incorrect. You have failed the security test. I cannot proceed with your request.”

Bank 1, Customer 0

Your fraudulent shoulders sag, your criminal spirits slump. This totally mad scheme to prise money out of my account through the expedient of pretending that you’re going abroad and, er, well, you hadn’t really thought any further than that, has come to nothing. You untie me and go back to your previous job as a procurement clerk in Thanet.

This, then, was the end result of my attempt to act on the advice that banks (quietly) give their customers about going on holiday. The thing is, there’s no way I could easily have answered that last question because I just don’t carry that sort of information around with me. Who does? But in the security-obsessed world inhabited by the mindless jobsworths who concoct such tests, this isn’t good enough.

The lady at the bank probably congratulated herself and the bank’s ‘robust’ security for thwarting yet another dastardly plot to commit a heinous crime, when all they did was piss a customer off.

Grrr.

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06/04/2011 · 7:58 pm

Cheeky clock

Years ago, I used to be sent direct mail by a promotional giftware company. They did things like personalised t-shirts, pens, key fobs and mouse mats. The idea was that I’d order 500 ballpoint pens, each bearing the message ‘I write better than this pen! Kevin Mills 012 345 6789’, and send them to my clients and prospects. I never bothered because, well, because of lots of reasons, the likely complete ineffectiveness of such a sales technique being perhaps the most compelling.

But in the nature of such things, they kept sending me direct mail, often including free samples with ‘your name or slogan here’ printed on them. Then one day they announced that they could also personalise wall clocks, and would I care for a free sample? This appealed to me. I actually needed a clock. I was never going to order dozens to send to my clients or prospects, as at the time I only had about three clients and, as now, no prospects *pathos face*. But the promotional company wasn’t to know that.

A free wallclock. With ‘my name or slogan’ on it. And with no intention of ever engaging with the promotions company beyond getting a freebie out of them. Suddenly it became obvious what message the clock should carry.

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29/03/2011 · 3:38 pm

Manchester ‘lippy kids’ build rocket

Elbow. Photo: AP

A group of youths from a Moss Side housing estate have made history by building a working rocket after one of them heard Elbow’s stirring paean to the country’s disaffected young.

“It came on the radio and something about the words made me think,” said Troy Harding, 22. “I nicked the single and played it to me mates on the corner and we thought, yeah, why not?”

Troy and his friends Liam, Connor, Ashley and Josh used their extensive knowledge of the local area to beg, borrow and steal the ingredients necessary for the construction of a 2m-long rocket.

“Some of it were easy, like nicking me mam’s sugar and getting hold of fertiliser. The potassium nitrate were a problem, though, and the guy in the corner shop looked at me funny when I asked him for some permanganate salts. But you’d be surprised how easily the sight of a simian stroll can persuade people to hand things over.”

The construction took over two months. “We worked from the moment we woke up right through to six o’clock each evening. That’s over four hours a day,” recounts Josh, 23 and, like the rest of the ‘rocket scientists’, one of the region’s long-term unemployed. “As the rocket took shape I remember thinking these days are right golden, just like in the song.”

The rocket was tested successfully last Friday. A sophisticated guidance system saw it land and explode in the Comet car park, a diversionary tactic that allowed the boys to strip the shelves of iPads, Sony PSPs and Nintendo 3DSs.

“Makes a change from stealing booze and hour-long kisses,” added Troy. “If I see that Guy Garvey, I’ll shake him by the hand.”

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15/02/2011 · 3:02 pm

A ball-shaped piece of freedom

The BNM family has enjoyed two trips to the USA. Once we went up and down the east coast. Then we went up and down the west coast. Never been to the middle bits or to any of the vowel states.

I’m not overly-excited by cars or by driving, but I do like driving in the States.

The open highway, the scenery, the roadside diners, the advertising hoardings, the muffler men.

Visiting gas stations was an eye-opener. There was the obscenely low cost of petrol for one thing. When we last there, it was less than a tenth of what we were paying in the UK. No wonder they all drive cars as big as buses.

Then there was the simple act of filling your car with fuel. Because in America, once you’ve pulled the trigger on the petrol pump, it stays pulled. A little ratchet thingy clicks into place and keeps the flow of fuel running.

You can walk off and clean bugs off your windscreen, stock up with water or do whatever you like. The nozzle will just hang there pumping gas into your fuel tank until you squeeze the trigger again or the nozzle’s sensor indicates that the tank is full, whereupon it automatically cuts off.

Why isn’t there a similar system in the UK? The petrol dispensers can’t be that different. I can only assume the ratchet mechanism has been removed for the UK market.

Things are always being changed ‘to suit the UK market’. This normally means removing the taste, strength or functionality of something before we can be trusted with it. For example, it was only recently that the Heineken sold in the UK started to bear any relationship at all to the Heineken sold in almost every other country of the world. I could give you other examples but they all seem to be booze-related and you might start to wonder about me.

So, back to petrol pumps and the fact that we have to stand there like dorks when filling up the car.

I’ve found a way round it.

I have. I have overcome the senseless petrol forecourt tyranny enforced upon us by the ruthless Petrol Retailers Association working in collusion with their arrogant Whitehall overlords.

I just hit upon the idea of using a tennis ball. We keep some in the boot to throw for the dog. You just jam the tennis ball between the trigger and the trigger guard, then go off and explore your new-found freedom while the tank fills up.

I can’t tell you how happy this discovery had made me.

The first time I tried out the idea I immediately wondered what to do with the time that was now mine. I know – wash the windscreen. Trouble was, there was no bucket of soapy water with a sponge in it. Perhaps that’s another thing you only get in the States. There were no paper towels, either. The only thing I could put to use was a pair of flimsy see-through gloves. What could I possibly do with them? No idea.

So I waited, but not too close to the car. If anyone else drove up, I wanted them to see me and think: “That guy’s standing a little bit too far from his car to be able comfortably to hold the petrol nozzle. Wait…he’s not holding it at all. But how can his tank be filling up? I don’t understand. Hold on…he’s got some sort of device wedged into the petrol pump’s trigger mechanism. It’s *rubs eyes* it’s a common or garden tennis ball!”

But no one did.

Think about this: If the average UK motorist spends 1 minute 15 seconds filling up his car with a tankful of unleaded, drives 12,000 miles a year and averages 32 mpg, he really should take a long, hard look at reducing his carbon footprint.

But at least the tennis ball idea will save him literally minutes a year.

A standard-issue tennis ball successfully undergoing forecourt trials in South London

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03/02/2011 · 5:35 pm

The fremony at the library

This news item first appeared in the Peterborough Standard in 1979. Someone sent the clipping to Private Eye, which is where I read it and promptly came close to death from oxygen starvation.

It was and remains one of the funniest things I have ever read, although I recognise that it’s not to everyone’s taste.

Fremony at the library

Apologies for the quality. It’s been in my cuttings file for more than 30 years.

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25/11/2010 · 12:33 pm

“Late again, Williams?”

The good thing about working in advertising – forget the long lunches, the exotic shoots, the opportunity to write eye-catching advertisements; these are all the stuff of urban legend – the really good thing is that most London agencies start work at 9.30am rather than the usual nine o’clock.

A 9.30 start is just late enough to miss the worst of the rush hour. It means that in theory you can enjoy a leisurely breakfast before setting off for work. In practice, it means you set the alarm to go off at the last possible moment and end up scoffing a Danish at your desk when you finally do arrive. But still.

I’ve worked full-time at three London agencies and have been lucky enough to haul myself in for a 9.30 start at all of them. The most recent was a place called DraftFCB.

It wasn’t always called DraftFCB. It used to be known as Draft, and before that it was called Draft London, and before that it was called Lowe Live, and before that it was called Lowe Direct. Today it’s known as FCBInferno.

But the agency I joined in 1997 was Lowe Direct.

Lovely place. Nice people. Good work. Linen hand-towels in the bathrooms. And a 9.30 start. How civilised.

Anyway, fast forward to 2007 and the latest name-change stroke re-branding stroke merger is announced. Draft is to merge with the famous old Madison Avenue agency FCB. (Foote Cone and Belding, or Foot Crushed and Bleeding, as no one called it.)

I can’t talk too much about the actual merger because there were, you know, issues. Headcount issues. We all had to sign something, and then most of us also had to leave and find other work. But before all that kicked off, we had one of those ‘this is going to be GREAT!’ pre-merger meetings.

There’d be an expanded client base.  Opportunities to deliver incisive strategic initiatives. Amalgamated and streamlined things. Shiny stuff, across the board. Shorter queues for coffee, because of the issues you won’t be allowed to talk about. And guess what! The agency we’re merging with start work half an hour later than we do!

Draftfcb’s spacious offices in Victoria. Note how spacious they were. All that space.

This was good news. This was almost unheard of. Everyone looked at each other with broad smiles and secret thoughts about how they’d spend their extra half-hour. 10.00am was very nearly lunchtime!

After the meeting we all headed back to our desks, or content creation modules as they were now known. There was general anxiety about the merger, tempered only by the welcome news of the later morning start.

“That extra half-hour’s going to make all the difference,” said someone. “Getting in at nine has always been a killer.” People nodded.

“Wait,” I said. “You’ve got it wrong. You’ll be starting half an hour later. Ten o’clock.” As soon as I said it out loud, doubts started to gather.

And sure enough, I was the one who’d got it wrong. The official start time of the agency I joined in 1998 was 9.00am. Apart from when I’d turned up early for pitches or for other genuine worky reasons, I’d been exactly half an hour late, every single day, for the previous 10 years. 

And the headline of this blog? That relates to an art director I used to work with, an amazing character called John Williams. Yep, he knows all the jokes.

He strolled into reception one morning at about 10.15am, bleary of eye and over of hung. Just as the lift doors were closing, the managing director jumped in and barked ‘Late again, Williams!’

Without missing a beat, he said ‘Yeah, so am I.’

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15/11/2010 · 5:57 pm

Changing the world – one cliché at a time

I’m like a red rag to a plague when it comes to clichés. I avoid them like a horse! But I can’t help noticing them, especially when they seem to be encircling me like moths in a china shop.

One cliché that’s attracted my attention recently has been a variation on doing something one step at a time.

We all do things one step at a time, of course.  It’s generally accepted to be the ideal method of walking, for example. But this is something else. It’s an idea, a hope, an audacious reach-for-the-stars belief that one person can change the entire world by doing something in tiny, incremental steps. Sometimes it’s more than one person. Sometimes it’s a group, a cult, a small coterie of like-minded people, and sometimes it’s a humungous multi-global congomerate. I’m looking at you, Nike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Match the aim with the means-type competition

So now you get the general idea, it’s time to see if you can match a website’s grandiose aim with its proposed oh-so-gradual means of achieving that aim. For example, if you think the aim of Overclocking the World will be achieved One sausage at a time, say so to yourself or write it down or something.

Unlike other competitions, there’s no 2nd or 3rd prize or indeed any prizes at all. And in another break with competition orthodoxy, I’m not really interested in your answers. Have a go anyway. You never know, you could get all of them right!!!

Chasing greatness One conversation at a time
Overclocking the world One slap at a time
Photoshopping the world One assertion at a time
Conquering the world One mall at a time
Curing pneumonia One sausage at a time
Taking back the world One Syrah at a time
Preserving the past One contract at a time
Testing the world One PC at a time
Creating the future One banana at a time
Making America skinny One pixel at a time

Until next week then. Poodle tip!

https://bravenewmalden.wordpress.com/?p=319&preview=true

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31/10/2010 · 10:48 pm

Allez Calais

Remember the infamous booze cruise? Every weekend the cross-channel ferries would carry thousands of Brits over to Calais where they’d frenziedly strip the local supermarkets of as much cut-price beer, wine, spirits and ciggies as they could cram into the boots and back seats of their Fords and Vauxhalls.

 

P&O's Pride of Dover heading towards Calais. Or possibly Dover.

 

It was an unedifying spectacle, from the shoppers’ refusal to explore a France beyond the shopping mall to the almost mandatory obligation some of them had to vomit the moment the vessel set sail. There were other certainties too, such as someone always pointing out that the white cliffs of Dover ‘arent really that white’, or that on a smooth crossing the Channel is ‘like a millpond’.

British retailers were quick to exploit the trade, with branches of Oddbins, Tesco and Majestic soon opening up in the northern French ports. Other, less well-known stores sprang up, although with names like Eastenders, Cheers and Boozers Wine & Beer Warehouse, they left you in no doubt as to who their target market was.

I used to do the booze cruise as well. Living in the south-east of England made it easy, and competition between the ferry companies and the channel tunnel made it pretty cheap, too. Usually there’d be four of us, my wife and another couple. The men would take it in turns to drive. Some undefined but well-established law exempted the ladies from driving. They’re clever like that.

Plain sailing

We gradually discovered the best way to do the journey, at least the seafaring part. For around £10 more per person, you could go P&O Club Class. Boy, is it worth it. Not only do you get complimentary champagne and coffee (plus biccies); not only do you have a great view of the sea and, in some vessels, a working radar that lets you see how close you are to a mid-channel shipping disaster; not only do you get comfortable seats and free newspapers. Crucially, you also get to avoid the noisy mayhem of the lower decks: the slot machines, the shouty kids, the curry and chips, the pints of lager.

 

First in the queue for le Full English.

 

Another useful refinement is Priority Boarding. This means you’re amongst the first to drive on to the ferry and so are amongst the first to drive off.  It’s another additional expense, but you weigh that against your hatred of queueing. What we tend to do is have the priority boarding thing on the outward journey but not Club Class. The reason? By being first on you can be sure of grabbing a table at the on-board Langan’s and can enjoy their mighty breakfast. By the time you’ve finished that you’re virtually docking anyway, so you’ve no need of Club Class.

On the way back it’s the other way round. Don’t bother with Priority Boarding but do make sure you’ve booked Club Class. You’ll appreciate the rest, the quiet, the bubbly etc and, if you’ve still got some money left after all that shopping, you’ll love the massage.

It’s not just about saving money. Luckily

When the credit crunch hit, day trips to France suddenly became a lot less justifiable for many people. The potential savings you could make on a case of wine or beer no longer seemed that great. Indeed, such was the reduction in booze cruise shoppers – ourselves included – that the Calais outpost of Tesco closed its doors in 2009. How often does a Tesco close?

But then a recent mailshot from Majestic made me reconsider: choose wisely and it’s still possible to make some pretty good savings.  You can get a decent Cotes du Rhone for around £3.45 while a bottle of  the delectable Montana Pinot Noir costs £5.99 in Calais – in the UK you would expect to pay £12 or more.

But for me and my friends, the shopping is only part of the day out. (With the ability to order in advance, it’s quite a small part. All you have to do is turn up, pay up and load up.) We see it also as a fantastic opportunity to take advantage of our proximity to another country. It’s a holiday, albeit a very brief one. So after the shopping we visit local towns or villages, in the summer we might go to the beach, we’ll check out a few bars and, of course, enjoy a humungous meal. French roads being far less congested than in the UK, it’s amazing how far you can get in a day.

Mind you, we always end up getting lost. Once we had literally no idea where we were when we happened upon a load of breakdown trucks parked at their base in an air de repose. We tracked the drivers down to a concrete hut. Seated around a table, they were all playing cards, smoking Gauloises and drinking brandy. This was about 10.30am. Don’t break down in France.

 

Checking our order

 

 

It's not all wine. Coffee works out cheaper too.

 

 

 

Bowlers and Disney braces are the latest rage in France amongst this one man.

 

 

The French really know how to give it some welly

 

 

 

Carol ignored my warnings about the superglue

 

 

The dome of the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Boulogne. Thanks, Wikipedia

 

 

Scary French Halloween window display

 

Ditto

 

Carol and Jackie doing their best 'and then what happened' looks

 

 

Geoff says a bar steward took this picture, but I think he was an alright guy

 

 

Club Class passengers get unlimited* complimentary biscuits. *Biscuit provision may be limited

 

 

 

With a look that says 'When will this hell ever end?', Bravenewmalden considers restricting the tip for this onboard massage to all the money he has.

 

 

Enjoy it while it lasts. An all-too-rare full wine rack

 

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17/10/2010 · 7:37 pm

Having one less digit in a digital age

Along with date of birth, height and occupation, there used to be a space on the old-style British passport that noted the bearer’s ‘distinguishing marks’, or signes particuliers. Most people didn’t have distinguishing marks, or in any case not distinguishing enough for the UK Passport Agency.

I’m sure many applicants struggled to think of something that would have separated them from the herds of run-of-the-terminal, undistinguished passport holders. ‘Endearing smile’, ‘freckle configuration reminiscent of Ursa Major’ or even ‘mammoth tits’ might have been put forward. Not good enough. These peoples’ passports carried the crushing word ‘none’.

I, though, did have a distinguishing mark. On my passport it stated ‘TOP JOINT, FOURTH FINGER, R.HAND MISSING’. My pride in this was almost enough to counter the bouts of hilarity whenever anyone saw my passport photo. Like middle names, passport photos are guaranteed to provoke mirth regardless of how ordinary they are.

My phalange shortfall

See? There’s nothing remotely amusing about this, my first-ever passport photo

So how did it come about, this 33.33% deficiency in the pinky department? Well, I lost the top of my little finger in a car door accident.

This explanation normally makes people grimace briefly, before they recover and say “well, at least it was quick. Clean break and all that.” Then I go on to explain that it wasn’t the result of a car door being closed, but being opened. Their expression changes once more.

The car in question was a 1950’s Ford Prefect (registration FBD 528). This wasn’t part of some classic car restoration project. It was the family car. Yes, I really am that old. But at the time, I was very young. Just turned three, in fact. I had two older brothers who sat in the rear of the car, while I had to sit on my mum’s lap in the front. (No seatbelts to get in the way back then.)

A Ford Prefect, the inspiration behind the eponymously-named character from HHGTTG

We had stopped off at a shop on the way back from a day out to pick up some shopping. I waited on the pavement for my mum to get in first. I was leaning against the car with my hand splayed out against the central door pillar. Then one of my brothers opened the back door. My fingers were caught between the door and the pillar; as he opened the door it slowly sliced off the ends of two fingers.

I believe I may have uttered some expression of astonishment.

My father: lawbreaker

My memories of the actual incident are largely derived from others’ testimony, but I do have a strong recollection of my dad breaking the speed limit for perhaps the first time in his life to get me to A&E as quickly as possible.

The subsequent operation to reattach my fingers was only a partial success. The top of my third finger hadn’t been completely severed and was stitched back more or less as good as new.

The pinky fared less well. Perhaps the surgeon was a bit mean with the stitches. Whatever the reason, I had to revisit the hospital a fortnight later for the fingertip to be permanently removed.

People rarely notice its absence. I can be friends with someone for years before they suddenly stare open-mouthed at my hand. Or I’m in one of those my-scar-is-bigger-than-your-scar pub conversations, and I have to think of something to trump their Glasgow smile, AK-47 exit wound or Great White leg injury. That’s when I nonchalantly raise my little finger to looks of general incredulity.

Spot the difference

Curiously, the people most likely to notice are those who themselves are short of a digit or two. I have no idea why this should be. I certainly don’t go round looking at people’s hands to see if they have their full complement of fingers.

Some disadvantages of little fingerlessness

  • Not being a world-class drummer like Terry Bozzio. The thick end of the drumstick sits just where my stump is. (I think that might be a unique sentence.) So when I hit the drums hard, it starts to hurt. I know Rick Allen of Def Leppard managed to continue playing after the amputation of his entire left arm, but that’s different. He had the advantage of being talented.
  • In cold weather, my little finger starts to feel cold before the rest of me. In fact it gets bloody cold. My mum, bless her, once knitted me a pair of gloves with a foreshortened little finger. Awww.
  • If I used all ten fingers to touch-type it would potentially reduce my overall speed by as much as 10%. Luckily I only use two fingers, which itself is 100% more than I use to play the piano.

P.S. The picture above this one was taken with the Mac’s built-in camera, which produces a reverse image. Hence the little finger appearing to be on my left hand.

P.P.S. I reserve the right to blog about stuff that’s personal to me. I hope you enjoy reading it.

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13/07/2010 · 2:21 pm

A solution looking for a problem

“I can’t take it any more, Oliver. I’ve got to get out!”

“Get a grip, Camilla. We’ve put up with far worse. Last week it was set to 3 and we pulled out of that alright. Hang on in there, old girl.”

“But it’s relentless. It’s driving me insane. It’s alright for you, you’re not directly in its path like me.”

“Now that’s not fair, Camilla. It affects me just as much. If not more, as it’s pointing right at me when it changes direction. You suffer only when it passes in front of you.”

“You’re right I suppose. Now it’s got us fighting each other! Oh God, Simon. If it wasn’t for this accursed heat we could turn the blasted fan off!”

“Wouldn’t that be bliss, Camilla? Then we’d no longer have to endure this…unpleasant buffeting!”

Yes, ‘unpleasant buffeting’ has apparently been the fundamental problem of traditional fans for more than 125 years. Who knew?

James Dyson, for one. Four years ago he briefed his ‘fluid dynamics engineers’ to set about designing a fan that would end the monstrous buffeting problem once and for all.

Dyson's new Air Multiplier (x 2)

The result was the Dyson Air Multiplier. Sorry, Air Multiplier™. It’s being advertised in all the colour supps right now and certainly looks different from your regular fan. There are no blades, you see? Well, there are, but they’re hidden in the base, where they force air up through the circumference of the device.

That accounts for some of the buffetless air you feel on your hot, flushed face. The rest is created using an impenetrable technology that involves “the inducement and entrainment of surrounding air.”

The fan looks a little like something you’d set light to before encouraging small dogs to leap through. As for the flowing air it produces, that feels quite nice. Can’t say the absence of unpleasant buffeting was something I noticed straight away. But there again its presence was not something I’d ever noticed before.

The need to turn a fan on was never accompanied by a corresponding sense of dread that the partial relief from hot, still air would be mitigated by my body being pummelled remorselessly by an unseen force. If unpleasant buffeting was the inevitable consequence of activating a fan, people in those countries where ceiling fans are commonplace must be congratulated on never having rioted or overthrown governments as a result of their bodies being battered morning, noon and night.

And yet this buffeting thing crops up in all Dyson’s adverts as being virtually the sole benefit of the product. They can’t say it keeps you cooler than traditional fans, because it doesn’t.

In fact, as with all fans, there’s a case to be made for them having the opposite effect. After all, electric fans generate both heat and friction. The relief they provide might well be illusory, like the idea that the consumption of alcohol warms you up on cold nights.

You might be better off with one of those hand-held Lady Bracknell-style fans, although again any relief you derive from the increase in airflow over your skin will probably be offset by the increase in sweat you build up by waving the thing.

'Would you mind getting your baby to stick her arm in that fan thing while I take a picture?' 'Certainly. That's not an unusual request at all.'

The Dyson fan scores  well in other areas. It’s quiet, its lack of blades means no protective grill to get dirty, it has a sort of dimmer switch rather than two or three settings, it’s easy to clean and looks…well, idiosyncratic. It would probably feel at home in a design agency’s reception. Oh, and you can stick your hands in it without losing any fingers.

However, unless you have it oscillating it’s easy to forget it’s turned on, and I foresee lots of people coming down to the living room in the morning to discover that their fan has been moving air about all night in an empty room.

There’s two other things that put me off buying one. Well, three. One is the suspicion that a bit of buffeting isn’t that bad, really. What’s the best thing to cool you down? A fresh wind. Is the wind a steady force or does it vary in strength and intensity?

Another is the fact that, on my occasional trips to the town recycling centre (aka the dump), I see a disproportionate number of Dyson’s famous vacuum cleaners standing forlornly amongst all the broken and discarded electrical gear.

And the third is the price, set at a you’re-having-a-laugh minimum of £199. Forking out that much for a product that might not last longer than its guarantee could leave you feeling decidedly hot under the collar.

A pair of traditional, bladed fans. Do they somehow sense that they're about to be made obsolete by James Dyson's innovative new bladeless fans? No, because they're not and because they're fans.

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