I bought a new alarm clock from Argos over the weekend. Nothing fancy, just a basic digital alarm clock that tells the time and makes a loud noise at a time of my choice in the morning. Except, it also beeps every hour. And there is no way to turn this off. And this is causing me consternation. Why would a company design an alarm clock that will clearly be placed in close proximity to a place people will be sleeping, that beeps every hour?

So now I can’t sleep because I’m too busy thinking about how our global economy can allow some poorly paid Chinese worker to assemble my clock and ship it halfway round the world only for me to return it ’cause it actually keeps me awake.