[Whever I’m having a rough day I run through the following scenario in my mind, secure in the knowledge that I’ll never experience anything quite so horrible.]

I’m the owner of an Alarm Clock manufacturing company during the early 90s.  I’m young and flash with my cash – perhaps I inherited the family business so I don’t fully appreciate the value of hard work.  I don’t invest a lot of my time in the business and I don’t need to – it mostly takes care of itself.  I spend my money on good food, fine women and foreign holidays, but there’s nothing I love more than getting my hands on the latest gadgets.  It is, after all, the early 90s – a time of technical innovation.  You should check out my CD player.

I imagine upgrading my old brickie mobile phone to a newer model – it’s tiny, almost as small as my home phone, and it’s even got a screen!  I’m so happy with my new purchase that I take it with me that night to a fancy party – I’m ready to impress.  A small crowd gathers around me in the nightclub.  “Look!” I shout above the music “it’s got a calculator!  And I can send messages, words, by typing them! They’re called texts!  And it’s got three hours battery life!”  As I flick through the phone’s menu, eager to find another function to boast about, something catches my eye.  Surely not?  Please, no.  I close my eyes and shake my head as if trying to scrub away what I’d seen from my brain, but I open my eyes and it’s still there – ‘ALARM CLOCK.’  I faint.  As my body hits the polished tile floor of the nightclub a final conscious thoughtspark shoots through my brain – nothing will ever be the same again.  I wake up hours later and discover that my new phone not only allows me to customise the alarm’s tone but also the duration of the ‘snooze button’.

Eighteen months later I declare bankruptcy.