The 10 Most Dangerous Christmas Presents

A recent news report highlighted the dangers of Nintendo's Wii console. Some people are finding that the controller slips out of their hand and flies across the room, breaking TVs or windows, which the Wii users then, apparently, cut themselves on. The report showed an image of a lacerated hand, and asked Should this console be banned?

Terrifying stuff. As someone who used to make games for consoles like these, I'm all too aware of the dangers these plastic boxes can pose to some people.

As it's the festive season, I though it might be prudent to make a list of the top ten most hazardous presents for people who have been injured, or are likely to be injured by playing with a Wii. These are the sorts of things which might be lurking under Christmas trees or waiting in stockings throughout the nation, ready to inflict great harm or even death.

10) Fruit

Hazard Rating: Moderate

A stocking-filler staple. Yet few people will be aware of the dangers of fruit. Lacking safety straps, it is all too easy for a piece of fruit to slip out of the hand and be catapulted across the room. The main danger here lies in large fruit, such as melons, although grapes fired at high velocity can cause damage to the eye, and perhaps blindness.

9) Books.

Hazard Rating: Moderate.

A book may be left on the floor, where it could be tripped over. Having stumbled, a person might easily fall through a window and plummet to the flower beds below, where they could be impaled on trowels embedded in the frozen earth, or sharp flowers.

8) Socks

Hazard Rating: Medium

Each year socks kill somewhere not in the region of a thousand people, who have inadvertently swallowed them and subsequently choked to death. Wii casualties, you have been warned.

7) Pencils and Pens

Hazard Rating: Serious.

Likely to be the last things you ever jam up your nose.

6) Underwear

Hazard Rating: Serious.

Like socks, there's a risk of choking. However, the elastic in underwear is the real danger here. If you've injured yourself with a Wii, elastic is not something you should feel confident handling.

5) CDs and DVDs

Hazard Rating: Perilous

Inadvertent sharpening of the edges against an abrasive surface, followed by a sudden stumble (over a book perhaps, or a games console) could turn these media storage devices into flying discs of death.

4) Scarves

Hazard Rating: Perilous

The Wii user should be aware of the possibility of strangulation when one end of a scarf is caught in the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner.

3) Shower gel/Deodorant/Aftershave Gift Sets.

Hazard Rating: Severe.

We've all had them as presents, but I suspect few have considered the potential damage they might cause when attached to a rope and swung rapidly around the head like bolas. Best not handled without some form of armour.

2) Puppies

Hazard Rating: Severe.

If you are the sort of person who has been, or is likely to be, injured by a games console, then the dangers posed to you by small animals (and I include kittens and budgies here) are severe. A pet is for life, not just for Christmas, but if you get a puppy for Christmas, then please be aware that your life is likely to be a short one.

1) Book Tokens

Hazard Rating: Lethal

Like any piece of paper, book tokens folded in a certain way can be quite pointy. Extra special care should be taken when handling such gifts of doom. Best spend them quickly on a nice, and only moderately dangerous, fantasy novel.

Language

I read in the news that more than £100 million of public money is spent each year on translation services.

Time for one of those nifty net abbreviations.

WTF????

We have people living here, in some cases people who have lived here for decades, who can't speak English. And why the hell should they, when they're so thoroughly pandered to?

Don't give me any crap about racial equality. That doesn't even come into it. If someone wants to move here, fine, I don't care what colour they are or what religion they follow. But I expect them to learn the language.

Now, I'm very fond of France -- great food, wine, and climate -- and I certainly wouldn't mind living there. When I'm on holiday in France, I'll speak French to the best of my abilities (not brilliantly, to be fair -- I can have a simple chat with someone about most day-to-day things, but don't ask me to give a speech at a neurologists' conference.) But if I ever emigrated there, you can be sure I'd be listening to my language tapes and brushing up on my verb tenses. The same goes for any other country. I never learned German at school, but I know how to say please and thank you, and a smattering of other phrases, and at least apologise that I can't say more.

Those Brits who move abroad only to stay within their own insular little communities bug me silly. It's rude to go and live in another country and not bother with the language. Yet here we are in the UK, in a country where old people will freeze to death this winter because they can't afford to heat their homes, spending £100m so that immigrants don't need to bother to learn.

A Thing of Beauty

Would somebody please, please buy me this for Christmas?

It's the Triumph Speed Triple Black Edition.

Ducatis are nice; they sound great and look pretty, but they're finicky and overly expensive. The Yamaha V-Max is the bike I'd have if I never had to go around corners. And BMWs, while solid and reliable, are just dull. Any Suzuki GSXR will turn my head, but only because I know what they can do -- I'm sorry, the new ones look like plastic pigs. Harleys? Don't get me started on Harleys. Great for Route 66, but not for a wet day in Glasgow. A friend of mine had a Harley- Davidson wristwatch. It made a surprising amount of noise and left an oil stain on his wrist.

Nah, give me a Triumph motorbike anytime.

If a Ducati, a Triumph, a Harley, a BMW, and a Suzuki were going to have a fight, here's what would happen: The Ducati wouldn't turn up. It would be lying on a sunbed somewhere, or doing it's hair. The Harley would decide to stay home and watch the fight on TV, with a tray of cheeseburgers. The Beamer would get all serious and insist on following some elaborate points scoring system, while the Triumph and Suzuki slugged it out bare-knuckled in a dog pit. Ok, the Suzuki might pull some ninja stuff, but the Triumph would give it a hard contest. Even if the British bike didn't win, it would still look good.

The designer of the Speed Triple is one guy I'd like to shake by the hand. I have an old T509 Triple (or Three Speed, as one of my mates likes to call it). It's not the most ball-blisteringly fast bike on the planet, but it's got enough oomph to wheelie off the throttle, which is more than enough for me, great handling, and the sort of brakes which will induce panic in anyone driving behind you. But I think it's the most beautiful motorbike in the world.

At least I did, until I saw the Black Edition.



I hope Santa is reading this. Either that, or I'm going to have to sell a lot more books.

Randomness

A friend of mine pointed out that I haven't updated the old blog for a while (it has both wet and dry rot, he said). It's true. I've been very busy. And not a great deal has happened.

A nice letter arrived from Bantam yesterday which included a photocopy of a page from Romantic Times magazine which had another good review for Scar Night:

"In this dark and vividly imagined novel, compelling and intriguing characters are brought together in an evocative and atmospheric take of gods and angels -- set in a stunningly realized city."

Did I just type all that in? I'm afraid I did. Ah, the joys of self promotion.

What else happened? Oh yeah... I switched on the blasted TV again.

I shouldn't do it. Every time I do this, it leads me to vent rabid spume and then anyone who reads this blog suffers.

It was Friday night, a week or so ago, and we watched Jools Holland, which was great. I like a bit of culture, me. Cracking music from the Chilli Peppers and the Be Good Tanyas and a stunning song from Thom Yorke (the only superstar I can truthfully say has done my dishes, but that's another story). But then we switched over to find a show called The World Music Awards. Fine, more music, I'll give it a shot. Paris Hilton's presence set alarm bells ringing. She got up in front of a surging mass of tens of thousands of people:

Here are the nominees for the Best Selling Artist of 2006

That threw me a little. Nominees for the best selling artist of the year? How does that work then? Isn't that like saying, here are the nominees for the number closest to, and including, 100?

The nominees are:

97

99

50

75

And the winner is...

Oddly enough, the winner was Madonna, who wasn't nominated. She didn't bother to turn up -- for which she gains a huge amount of kudos in my book. Good for you, Mads.

The only other thing worth mentioning (and it's a biggie - bigger even than a good review or a foreign sale) is this:

The new James Bond is better than Sean Connery.

I never thought I'd say that. Really, it's almost unimaginable. I am a huge fan of the Bond films. Most of the actors who've played 007 have been excellent, but none have come close to Mr Connery until now. Daniel Craig is superb.

I enjoyed Casino Royale, so much so that I can almost forgive the shameful product placement.

"Do you have a Rolex, Mr Bond?"

"No, I have a BRAND NAME HERE."

"Would you like a drink, Mr Bond? A Vodka Martini?"

"No, I'll have a BRAND NAME HERE with tonic and a slice of lemon."

Second character: "Hey, that sounds really good, I'll have a BRAND NAME HERE too."

Third character: "Yes, I'll have one of those too."

Four character: "Me too."

Fifth character, angrily: "Are we going to play poker or what?"

Sitting in the audience, I was beginning to wonder the same thing.

I like a game of poker myself. Tonight I went through to Edinburgh to play in a tournament. Great stuff. Grizzled men and women who look like they've smoked 60 a day for 40 years, tossing in stacks of chips as if they were crumbs for the birds. Raise, call, fold. There was even a guy in a huge black Texas cowboy hat, although he could easily have been from Glasgow. I played a tight game, and I don't think I made any mistakes (other than perhaps not playing a bit looser towards the end), but I had no cards to bet on all night. Well... I had two hands. My AK lost to an AQ when my opponent hit a straight on the river. And I folded my QQ after the flop came up AA7 and two players threw bets in before me (ironically, I would have won, but I don't care what you say -- you can't call with QQ when there's an ace in the flop and people are betting). Tough luck. That's the game though.

Except when it's at a 100 million dollar tournament in Montenegro, when everyone has a straight flush of a full house, and there's a sinister man who weeps blood under duress.