| Some people are pretty hard to buy
presents for. Take my uncle, for example. The man's a
millionnaire, and lives in a huge house with his wife and kids
(complete with indoor swimming pool, gymnasium, full-sized snooker
table, table-tennis, home cinema and a garden that could probably
host a Test Match). What do you buy somebody who could walk into the
high street and buy whatever he wants? What can you get somebody who
has an entire room dedicated to DVDs, CDs and fine wine? The
answer: very little. You have a choice: either make him something
yourself (not even an option for me, I can barely put together
flat-pack furniture without wanting to cry in frustration), or
get him something completely random - something on the short list of
things that he may not have ever tried before. How about a voucher
for a day's
microlighting? So he might have his own private jet, but surely
soaring a couple of hundred feet in the air in a recreational,
ultra-lightweight aeroplane is going to be a new experience for him.
Or how about a weekend of
quad biking - he must be sick to the stomach of driving his
Lexus, Mercedes, BMW and Porsche round in
circles by now, maybe something a little simpler and a little
more all-terrain will put a smile on his face.
All in all, when buying gifts for somebody who 'has everything',
it becomes more about buying the experience than buying some
trinket that will simply be discarded as soon as Boxing Day rolls
around. With flying and
driving experience days ranging from off-road and 4x4 driving,
aerobatic flying and microlighting, all the way to driving a
15-tonne tank or skydiving using a vertical wind tunnel, there's got
to be something out there that they haven't tried before. They'll
definitely find a deeper appreciation in being able to try something
new, rather than just receive the same tired old presents again.
This kind of gift isn't for everybody, however. Every family has
its own
hypochondriac (some families even have several!), and they're
unlikely to get a great deal of enjoyment from the prospect of a
day's
rally driving - even if they've played Colin McRae's on the
Playstation - or indeed,
indoor skydiving - there's a good chance they'd faint pretty
soon after tearing off the wrapping paper.
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