It’s nearly Christmas in the UK, the season when Britain reconnects with its religious beliefs and reflects for a moment on those less fortunate than ourselves and indulges in a grotesque orgy of spending, merrymaking and general excess, which will leave most struggling to pay the rent for much of 2016.
You only have to visit any of the major thoroughfares in central London to see the annual consumer contagion at its most virulent. Last Sunday I ventured into Oxford Street, London’s retail centre, only to find the streets thronged with crazed shoppers, all looking for presents to purchase to give to people they don’t like, and who don’t want them anyway.
Each year one particular item generally emerges from the avalanche of tat to become the must-have gift. Some years ago it was the Rubik’s cube puzzle; then came the Game Boy and Razor Scooters. Now, in 2015, it’s the hoverboard. This self-balancing transport device – which is also very popular in the UAE – allows the owner to zoom back and forth at will merely by standing on the platform and shifting one’s weight.
It’s a curious contraption, thrillingly futuristic and yet simultaneously harking back to a long-forgotten vision of the future. Merely to stand on one gives the sensation of appearing in an old episode of Star Trek. It’s Christmas Jim, but not as we know it.
Some purchasers have already employed the hoverboard in ways the manufacturers could not have envisaged – as in the case of Omaree Lindsay, who used one to hover into a south London store, pick up a crate of fizzy drinks and hover back out again, without stopping to pay. Sadly for him, he was caught on camera and this week he became the first person convicted of riding a hoverboard illegally on a public road. For him, at least, this Christmas will be one to remember.
Yet with celebrities such as Justin Bieber, Lily Allen and Manchester City footballer Raheem Sterling being snapped using them, they’ve been flying off the shelves.
But along with the instruction leaflet and charging device included with each purchase, some are suggesting it should also include the address of a good lawyer. There has been a spate of accidents in which hoverboards short-circuited, burst into flames, and in one incident in London even pitchforked its terrified owner, Nawaf Al Tuwayan, 15, straight into the path of an oncoming bus.
After months of controversy, the National Trading Standards office recently tested 17,000 of the items on sale to the public, only to find that no fewer than 15,000 were non-compliant with basic safety standards. The organisation concluded the report with a safety warning, pointing out that in the event of an accident or injury, retailers selling hoverboards could be liable for prosecution.
That was enough. Within days several major retailers had decided to withdraw hoverboards from their shelves, correctly reasoning that any profits from sales could easily be wiped out by legal cases or bad publicity. Amazon has also said it will refund customers who've purchased them.
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. Yet for anyone fearing their Christmas may be ruined by having to return their hoped-for present before they’ve got to try it out on the lounge carpet, may I suggest a silver lining?
With the National Health Service suggesting 61 per cent of adults and 28 per cent of children in the UK are now clinically obese, it seems that for many people the short walk from sofa to fridge and back again is about as much exercise as they get in an average day.
Goodness knows what would happen if even these few piffling calories worth of exertion were to be deprived from their routine.
Using your legs to get about from A to B may seem a quaint and old-fashioned mode of transportation. But it may just prolong your life.
Michael Simkins is an actor and writer in London
On Twitter: @michael_simkins