Linda Kennedy: There's certainly nothing clever about these tough luck boxes

Published on Wednesday 31 December 2008 18:10

THINK out of the box, Britain. This is not a plea to be lateral, and have inventive New Year resolutions. It's a request to companies to use more finger-friendly packaging when sending 2009's food, drink and Christmas presents through the post.

There is a pile of brown things in the corner of my kitchen. These cardboard boxes are representative of the type in which goods ordered online arrive, and they should all be marked 'TOUGH'. It's both a description of their resilience, and a verdict on the recipient's luck.

Postal ordering of goods is all very well. But once the stuff is in the door, so begins the battle. People moan about red tape. Brown tape is worse. How do you get past it? Most companies seem to employ packers who are either into bondage, or reincarnated from workers in the mummification departments of ancient Egypt.

Their peccadilloes, or professionalism, mean the cartons are almost impregnable. No strategy works: your nails are ruined trying to slit the tape, which comes away in shards, leaving fringing which resembles a Strictly Come Dancing jive dress. Go in via a corner and your hands won't even create a dimple. And though a kitchen knife may eventually carve a gap, it's never quite generous enough to extract the item with ease, whereupon 'parcel birth' ensues. "I can see it. It's coming. No, it's stuck. It's coming again. Yes! It's a book from Amazon."

Since those happy moments when my ordered goods first entered my world, I have left the boxes brooding in the corner. As part of the general post-holiday clear-up, a task yet tougher than gaining access remains, and that is breaking them down for recycling. There I will be, gnawing away with a knife for days, trying to subdue the boxes into manageable squares. As a preliminary measure, I have jumped on some, noting a degree of splay. Henceforth, visitors may also be invited to bounce on my boxes, in an adult version of playing with packaging. "Three, two, one, gambol!" New Year visitors especially will be included in the act. First-footers can double as jumpers, after all, even though it's not a leap year.

An issue wider than my impact on the boxes – strangely little, given my post-Christmas weight – is their impact on the environment. The plastic bag is supposed to be the packaging of the devil, but doesn't the burly box trump this? The fortified cardboard crate in which most goods ordered online arrive is surely the next big green issue. Expect campaigns. And perhaps government attention. Eventually there may even be Brown's brown box tax, if he too is thinking out of the box.

Change my ways? Fat chance!

SO, JANUARY. It seems everyone is already talking about weight and that modern gauge, body mass index, dominates the conversation. "What's yours?" "Mine seems to be 157. Oops, I divided my birth-date by the square of my waist-line. Silly me."

I hate BMI. I wish stones would make a comeback. You know where you are with imperial measurements. You stand on the scales and wonder how much your pyjamas weigh. The problem with BMI is it's so complicated: you have to be numerate before you know you're obese.

Remember the metric martyrs who refused to buy parsnips by the kilo? I'm going to be a body mass martyr; I'd rather measure my spare tyre in stones than my bulges through BMI. However, for the record, let's get the formula for BMI straight: it's your first pet's name divided by your height in kilograms. OK?

A NEW TV channel should be launched next year: BBC Compromise. It will be broadcast just one week of the year, around Christmas, and be off air the rest of the time. Its target audience will be families getting together over the festive period.

Its programmes will be bland and mild fare, the television equivalent of turkey. It will broadcast films at least two family members have seen, mixed with old TV shows a minimum of five people per household don't want to see. It will have big viewing figures.