But what is it with designer packaging? I watched on news recently about a certain 'Mr Big' who was arrested for peddling cheap DVD's and it would appear he owed his brief success to selling movies for about three quid and thus had very few complaints from his growing customer base. Now if an Asian asylum seeking entrepreneur can spot a corner in market after just six years in 'Blighty' what does that tell you about our over-priced, over-packaged, over-hyped, etc etc products, whose manufacturers are surprised when a pirate industry springs up and takes 40% of business?

Buying good quality contraband should be encouraged to force real 'rip off' merchants to bring their prices down? Oops! Did I say that out loud?

This brings me to packaging. My froth about packaging is such a pet hate with me. I would love to hit streets with a camera crew and see how many O.A.P's can get a Digital camcorder memory card out of its second skin before they croak or preferably just watch their wrinkly faces screw right up as I dust them occasionally.

These little suckers are only size of postage stamp but live in this plastic crib that will withstand a thousand megaton blast. The shell is moulded and in comparison to actual size of product is equivalent to an affixed playing card in middle of Old Trafford. Inside is a paper insert that has a splash of graphics promising you eternal life and a perpetual hard-on for your digital recorder.

It is a freestanding display that apart from its impregnability would be an ideal ice scraper for car windscreen when your own credit card has already expired. I used carpet scissors in end to chomp plastic edging away, slither by slither, until I found tiny card that was further cocooned inside another plastic sarcophagus. It's very own 'snap-to' and rigid wallet for easy carriage. To my horror I noticed I had extricated card without checking printed warning that 'should product be unsatisfactory' that it had to be returned intact.

How do you know it is unsatisfactory until you have tried it? It's a memory card for a video recorder? You have to try it out first by taking it out of package. I bet even memory card would have remembered this.

Supermarket shelves groan with weight of packaging when little of product actually exists.

Rashers of bacon sat looking without hope in welded envelopes. Biscuits have to be guillotined midway up packet to become liberated. Vacuum packed frozen goods with re-sealable 'fasteners' that refuse to clip together and end up slipping out and falling helplessly to freezer floor. Petit Pois, sweetcorn or pasta that you try to open top end and by some bizarre logic thus gives signal for arse end to burst apart with force of a megaton bomb.

Audio tapes! (I mention these as I'm 'normally bias' anyway….) The cellophane that hermetically seals your boxes of tapes in case they are exposed to too much oxygen and need tiniest forceps in world combined with your own teeth to remove.

'Shrunkwrapped' pizzas that look like an artefact found by 'Timeteam' with all cheese and already sparsely dressed toppings on one side only. That's right. I see you nodding! Leaving one, lonely, stray slice of pepperoni inhabiting bald hemisphere making your TV dinner looking like a pimple on a bears arse. You can only imagine that last Neapolitan left alone on shelf forces you to buy it because it was constructed by a food operative that presumably serves breakfast at home to his or her family with a tennis racket.

Sandwiches that are 'front end loaded' for display purposes fooling hungry buyer that chunky filling continues throughout entire breadth of bread. Not so. A sneaky lift of promising BLT reveals yawning expanses of nothingness, only if you can exhume it from plastic prison first without it exploding over your 'laptop'.

Whole marketing and design departments spend a sh*tload of cash trying to create most inappropriate packaging. Easter eggs for instance. Trees have to die to put a stupid piece of hollow chocolate into a coffin. What's wrong with a bit of bubblewrap? Who invented polystyrene quaver and giant shoulders of stuff protecting your new TV? At Christmas time my house is drifted inside to rafters in stuff. My garage becomes an arsonists' paradise until dustman comes, with reams of cardboard, flat and corrugated, and customary shower of polystyrene that after a light breeze can be found in every corner of every garden in my street for weeks to come. Chunks of stuff, that if strapped together, would probably melt polar icecaps and is chased, eaten and passed by small children and dogs (easily mistaken for those circular rice cakes but far tastier).

"Contents may settle".

What seems to be happening here, is manufacturer is too embarrassed to say 'size does matter' and want you to believe that 50% extra FREE is box size and nothing to do with what's inside. If you bought muesli that 'settled' does that mean you will be less disappointed at opening a half empty box? Does this apply to meanly filled yoghurt pots or boxes of fish that say "6 to 8" pieces? It's either 6 or 8? I don't like guessing games. If I go to my bank I don't want teller to say to me when I want a balance, "You've got either sixty quid left or a fiver."

The faster I try to go; less I seem to accomplish.

This past week proved no exception; in fact, everything came to a head on Monday. I had my To-Do-List all prioritized and neatly written on several 3 by 5 cards stuffed in my shirt pocket. Earlier I went through them item by item to make sure I could maximize day. After all, "The early bird catches worm."

Being turkey I am, I have no idea what I'm going to do with worm when I catch it, particularly if it's early in morning when all I want is a good cup of coffee. Yet, I can often be found imitating that "early bird" scurrying around with my list of important things to do.

Getting back to my Monday catastrophe, and I can't think of another word that adequately describes last Monday. Sure, I've had catastrophes before. But this one was wicked stepmother of all catastrophes.

After organizing my 3 by 5 cards, I made some mental notes as to how long each job would take. Returning those cards to my shirt pocket, I smiled smile of one who has conquered his day. I felt good about myself and was anxious to get started on my day.

My day started out rather well. In fact, I discovered by mid-morning I was ahead of schedule. I chuckled to myself and thought, "next time I'll have a longer To-Do-List."

Suddenly, everything came to a screech owl halt.

I needed to pick up something at my office, which would only take a moment. I pulled up to my office door, jumped out of car and unlocked office door.

The office door can only be locked from outside, with a key. The inside has a handicap bar according to building code. I thought I would save time by unlocking door and then locking it while I went inside to retrieve item I needed. This would mean when I came to leave I could walk out, shut door behind me and it would lock automatically.

This would save me exactly .00003 seconds of time. As time is precious, I thought it worth effort.