I am not very good at buying presents in general, and buying presents for Babel is particularly problematic. You can’t buy him music, because he doesn’t listen to it. You can’t buy him DVDs, because he downloads anything he wants to watch. You can’t buy him books, because unless you agree a specific book with him in advance, the chances are he’ll have bought it, read it and reviewed it before you get to give it to him. You can’t buy him clothes, because he’s not a clothes sort of person and he has an abnormally large neck. You can’t buy him aftershave, because he wouldn’t use it, and you can’t buy him chocolate because it wouldn’t help his figure. So out of all my usual male-present-buying ideas, the only one that remains is socks and since we disagree in any case over what constitutes an appropriate sock, I feel this is territory best avoided

There is extra special pressure this year to buy a present, as this birthday is going to be his thirtieth, and much as he protests he doesn’t care in the slightest, you have to get someone a nice present for their thirtieth I was thinking about this a couple of days ago, and I actually had what I thought was quite a good idea. That is to say, I half-remembered a rather distant conversation in which I’m sure he mentioned something which he might want. I can’t pinpoint when or where this conversation occurred, but it must have occurred because the thing in question is definitely not something that I would want, so it seems unlikely that I would have imagined it.

This being a rather substantial sort of thing, it seemed suitable for a thirtieth birthday present, so off I trotted to the shops at lunchtime to compare prices. I knew it wasn’t going to be cheap, but I imagined the price might be somewhere along the lines of the present I bought him last year. I was in for an unpleasant shock, when I discovered that Argos was selling the item in question for more than twice that amount. Bother it

Not one to be put off easily, I decided to compare the price in various other retail outlets. I was hopeful that one might be having a sale, or that some would be naturally cheaper than others. I visited no fewer than three shops, all of which frustratingly seemed to be retailing the item at an identical price

Slightly disheartened, but nevertheless not depressed, I decided to have a look online. First port of call was play.com because Babel had told me they did free postage, and this item is potentially a bit heavy to post. The price was identical. Okay, next port of call was Amazon. Again, price identical, although they were prepared to giftwrap it for me for an extra £2. Hmmm.

Somewhat surprised by this, I decided to consider the second hand option and have a look at ebay. I am generally a bit suspicious of ebay, and I am especially reluctant to use it for the sort of thing which I am considering buying in this instance. I mean, it’s one thing using it to buy a book, because there’s a limited number of things which could be wrong with a book. But this is an item which has the potential to be broken and not work, and so buying it second hand seems rather a risk, *especially* because it’s not the sort of item where I’m going to have the potential to test it and see if it works before giving it away as a present. It would be very embarassing to give someone a thirtieth birthday present only for them to discover it doesn’t work and to have to explain that yeah, that’s because you bought a second-hand dodgy version off ebay

I tried to keep an open mind, however, and registered myself with an account. A quick search revealed an awful lot of the items in question, most of which were selling at a price in excess of what the shops were going to charge me. Right. I found one that looked rather promising for a third of the usual price, but it was the equivalent of buying a jigsaw with three pieces missing. I went to a shop after work to ascertain how much it would set me back to purchase the missing pieces independently, and a helpful man explained to a somewhat bewildered me that it would probably be about £70

Perhaps not then. I had another look last night and bid on an item which seemed a bit more promising, but I’m still highly suspicious as to why anyone would be selling anything which is in good condition. There’s a strict limit as to what I’m prepared to pay for anything off ebay; if I get an 80% discount on something and it doesn’t work, that’s fair enough – a little embarrassing to have given someone an inadequate present, but fair enough. If, however, you only get 30% off – that’s still an awful lot of money to spend on something that may be broken. So, so far I’ve only managed to find one item I’m prepared to bid on! I did indeed bid on it, my top bid plus postage being 37% of the retail price. Just in the process of writing this though I have been outbid for the fourth time and have decided not to take it any further.

My current feeling is that I might now abandon the stress of ebay, and buy a nice legitimate shop version instead. Babel is only going to be 30 once after all, and if he continues in his current job he’s not going to live to see 40, so it’s not like I run the risk of having to buy further expensive birthday presents in the future :ninja: Alternatively, I could exercise my brain cells a bit further and try to come up with a better idea. Hmmm. On a brighter note, I spent Tuesday lunchtime trying to choose Babel a birthday card and I think the one I’ve ended up with is pretty cool, so at least that’s sorted