I realise that my finger is probably not on the pulse of the British present-buying public (and frankly, I’m fairly glad), as I’m not
a) under ten or
b) totally loaded.

Every year, present-buying fills me with the sort of loathing otherwise reserved for…well, it used to be reserved for trips to the dentist, until I found a dentist who not only was pleasant and human, but also provided gas-and-air with soothing music during even the most routine dental inspection. Now there’s a man who understands the importance of customer loyalty: get them hooked and they’re yours for life.

So no, my loathing of Christmas shopping isn’t shared with dentist visits, but probably something like, oh, I don’t know, having to walk really quite far to find a cab in highly inappropriate and really very uncomfortable high heels at the end of a long night of standing around at some soiree, the top half of which was pleasant (wine, nibbles) while the bottom half not-so (aching, swelling).

I loathe Christmas shopping about as much as I loathe marathon running in strappy sandals.

On a side note, I’d really like to know something, just for the record. Those dangerously high shoes, with dagger-like heels and frou-frou all over them - beads and feathers and that sort of thing, you know what I mean - Manolos - do the women who wear them habitually actually enjoy wearing them? I mean, do they find them comfortable to wear?

I have heels of varying heights, and shoes of varying levels of comfort. I know for a fact that the comfort factor does not directly corrolate to the height of the heel, but it surely corrolates to something. Pointiness. Thinness of sole. Totterability. In any case, I can only wear the least comfortable ones for literally an hour before I start wanting to cry. This leads me to think that women who wear high heels habitually possibly
a) don’t mind pain: they feel it’s worth suffering to look great
b) don’t feel pain: they are almost totally numb from the ankle down as a result of lifetime heel-wearing
c) have a secret insert or invisible brace which allows them to cope with foot pain most mere mortals would weep from
d) have a secret mantra taught to them by an overpaid lifestyle coach which enables them to endure hobbling podalgia; something like “What doesn’t kill me makes me taller”
e) have a higher threshold for pain than me (possible, because I am a total wuss)
f) have fluffy slippers hidden in their bag which they whip out when no-one is looking or
g) aren’t actually human but are female-type mechanoids who do not know the meaning of pain and think that Daniel Bedingfield is quite hot actually.

I’m going for (g), personally. The freaks.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Christmas present buying.

Don’t get me wrong; it’s not that I don’t like giving people presents. On the contrary. I love it. But here’s the thing. I hate frenzied consumerism, and crowded shopping streets full of morons walking slowly and bashing their fourteen carrier bags into the backs of my calves. Fucking stop it, you slow-moving bastards.

The idea of trawling down Oxford Street at pretty much any point during November, December, January and much of June-September is about as welcome as the idea of being screeched in the morning after a particularly hectic night out on the tiles in Mexico city with a bunch of fallen-off-the-wagon alcoholics with a taste for Lakilla cocktails (red wine, Malibu and Tequila. You really will want to expire after a few of those, or at least, you will the morning after).

So with some relief, each year I turn to the internet. Thank you internet, for being invented and making it about a million times easier to make festive purchases. Thanks to you, dearest web, the people of Oxford Street are spared my sharpened elbows and manic death-stare.

The trouble is, there’s just not that much I want to get. It’s almost all universally shit.

For fear of letting slip the creative and original gifts (nearly wrote gits there, which in a funny way I prefer) which I have assembled this year for my nearest and dearest, let me point you instead to this rather bizarre gift which I just stumbled across.

It’s a rubber-band-shooting Gatling Gun. It spins through 360 degrees, and will tilt from 45 degrees up to 22 degrees down. It can fire 560 rounds per minute and you can shoot 144 rounds in just 12 seconds. It takes up to half an hour to reload it. It costs £399.

What I want to know is this: who on this planet actually
a) has a requirement for such a thing
b) has £400 burning a hole in their pocket to spend on a big novelty toy
c) would?

I mean, I can sort of see the point of getting a rubber band gun (and I mean “sort of” in the sense of “not at all, because they’re violent and stupid and even if they are under a tenner and made of wood, you’re still fundamentally firing things at people from a gun which isn’t very clever at all”) if you were particularly into firing rubber bands at other people - or pets? Moving traffic? Who knows what people fire rubber bands at? Not me. I mean, I don’t know, not, “don’t fire them at me” (though that as well, now I come to mention it.) but who needs a bloody great gatling gun capable of firing off 560 rubber bands per minute? Who could you possibly want to bombard that badly?

Reading some of the customer reviews on those pages, I am struck by two thoughts, which are jostling for prominence in my head.

The second thought it that the world is full of people I just don’t understand. That’s a sobering thought for a former anthropologist.

The first, and possibly the current winning thought is that most of the reviews for those rubber-band-firing wepons are clearly made up.

No, you didn’t take a four hundred quid rubber band gatling gun onto a bus and fire it at schoolchildren.

And no, you didn’t take one into work and put it into the lift while you wore an American Civil War uniform.

And while we’re at it, you didn’t hide in the stationery cupboard and then get fired for firing it at your boss. I don’t care if you’ve harboured that secret dream for the last eighteen months, and I don’t care if your palms get all moist at the mere thought of pulling the trigger into his red, wobbling face once and for all, but you didn’t, did you? You sat at your desk and logged onto a boystoys website when you should have been writing a report and you made some shit up about killing your boss in a hail of rubber bands. It might make you feel better about your working day, but it’s simply not true I’m no Claire Rayner, but my advice to you would be to quit, young man, and fast.

It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

(Related: You know, I always thought that was sort of a silly saying until I met someone whose aunt actually had lost an eye when someone fired a rubber band at her face. It actually happened. She must be so sick of that saying.)

(Related related: Does anyone recognise the phrase “horsing around”? My parentals used to accuse us of it all the time, and I always assumed it was just a them-thing, like saying “Barley” when you wanted to stop being tickled.)