I don't know about the rest of the planet but in the UK were are always assaulted by catalogues of garabage falling through our doors etc.

Today my favorite useless thing was spotted in a catalogue

For in car safety a in car emergency tool with three features

1 a seatbelt cutter useful

2 A glass hammer also useful

3 An airbag burster Which is a sharp needle for bursting airbags. Erm yes wonderful

Sorry but i find this even funnier than the glow in the dark toilet seat

The kind of items you saw in the "Innovations Catalogue" after it was bought out by GUS, not the super expensive cool stuff in the early years.

Here's some gems from the Betterware website:

"Heated ice scraper" - erm, I like my ice scrapers to be strong solid plastic not rubber and metal, let along with wires coming out!

"Charge 'n' Start" - jump start through your cigar lighter socket - with a 2-amp cable!!

Those whistle key finders from about ten years ago - the ones that don't work when you try them but do go off when you clink a plate.

Car visor extender - now that would be useful for those front facing speed cameras.

"Car CD visor" - bwaaaahaaaa - CD's - in my car???

2A? You'll get a cool light show as the wire burns up

Some mail order place put a catalog though my door recently. They were advertising a "dog mess cleaning spray". I'm assuming they mean you dispose of the offending object the normal way and then spray the floor and not actually use the spray to clean turds...

Actually, those lighter-to-lighter "jumper-cables" have current limiting circuitry in them. They take longer (over 10 minutes), but for people who are concerned about safety (or, more specifically, for people you can't trust to follow the safe method of using standard jumper cables), they're better than nothing.

Except maybe a AAA membership (...in the US, not sure what the equivalent is in Europe).

-brendan

Ahh. They must be partially recharging the battery or something? It's either that or they've designed it so that the other car provides that extra 2A and you hope your battery isn't totally dead.

We've got the AA over here in the UK. And I don't mean alcoholics anonymous

> Ahh. They must be either partially recharging the battery or something?

Yup, slow-charging. Exactly.

-brendan

I would imagine you would have to sit for a *long* time before there is enough charge to crank the starter - and if you crank too early or it has trouble catching you are back at square 1.

Last time I left my lights on (in the cop car, before I rewired the chimes) my mum brought her 998cc Nissan Micra and some piddly jump leads - as you can imagine it had no chance jumping a 350 V8!

I took the battery home and came back the next morning - it was in Winchester which is pretty safe on the whole. I now have a good set of tools and beefy jumpleads in *both* my cars.

Gareth