One of the more humbling experiences for the blagger that lurks within every journalist is checking out exhibition press offices to see what inconsequential freebies the poor, deluded PR community think will turn us on or make us feel sufficiently guilty to write something about the product, service or company they're desperately pushing and we'd never, ever consider wasting time on.
Over the years, I've collected - more accurately, thrown away or passed on after the event - more useless dross than I am able to remember. To realise how forgettable the freebies usually are, I only need to list out the few highlights (highlights!) that I am able to recall.
These include a set of juggling balls (I can't juggle but I'm the only family member totally lacking the required hand-eye co-ordination - so they found a willing taker); a USB reading lamp (not a lot of use for someone who's never owned a laptop - and I suspect that the laptop-owing mate I gave it to has never even plugged it in - but there was no way I wasn't going to take one!); a pen that writes under water (welcomed by a less-than-discerning four-year-old); and a whole mountain of pens that don't write in or out of water.
An aside
I have to assume that vast
areas of Chinese industrial complexes are given over to
factories producing freebie pens containing not a drop of ink
- and good luck to them, I say, cos they're clearly doing a roaring
trade and providing a much-valued service.
This week, though, in the CTS press office, I came upon that most exceptional of freebies - a sample of the very product that the press-pack was all about (why can't Intel, AMD, Microsoft, Apple, Dell and HP do more of that?). Better still, it was something that I didn't have to feel guilty about taking since I thought - and you'll have to be the judge of that - I could create an interesting little editorial item around it. On the downside, as seems inevitably the case, this freebie is still something that's destined to be given away - or thrown away if no one will take it.
The thoughtful - and in this exceptional case, far from deluded - provider was Hela, a company I should probably be ashamed to admit I've never heard of before, given that it does appear to make some (other?) interesting products. Among them is the Duraflex, a roll-up laptop keyboard, and the Perific Mouse. You'll have to click on the preceeding underlined links, though, cos I've no intention of including any product details that might spoil the karma of what's intended to be a humourous piece.
So what was it that Hela provided and I gleefully stuck in my bag? Well, if you've got ahead of me and cast your eye down this page a ways (or even clicked on the above link to Hela's site), you'll probably have realised exactly what it was - the Hela USB Massage Ball- oh, er madam!
But neither will have done you any good. You won't realise quite how gleeful I was until you click on the first picture below - to bring up a bigger version that lets you read the small print directly underneath the product's name. That line left my dirty mind boggling because it reads, "The massage ball is easily operated by hand and is also effective when positioned on a seating surface".
And I couldn't stop sniggering even after I'd turned the pack over and discovered the plausible explanation - plausible that is unless someone finds YOU sitting on a far-from-silent massage ball while working at the PC (never thought you'd regret the day you bought a quiet PC, did you?).
There, down at No.6 in the seven-item list of body parts that the device is intended to relieve and soothe is the get-out (you hope, if you're caught) - "Thigh".
Click for larger image
Click for larger imagePicked up any "great" freebies yourself? Tell us all about them in the HEXUS.community.
HEXUS.links
Hela - Home page
Hela - USB Massage Ball
CTS 2006 - All the HEXUS coverage
Blaggers anonymous - Home page
