h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ever since I read your entry, I only get advertisements for office chairs....

I like your initiative. Last time we got new chairs the old ones just moved to people with even older chairs that really should have been scrapped years before (the chairs, not the people)

The new chairs were so expensive we had to adjust to them for weeks (with cheaper ones, you adjust the chair to suit you)

I'm wondering if we could mess with the ad people by writing weirder and weirder articles in the Post....

So what do we want to see? Wide vistas, mountain ranges , some snacks...

It could be worth a try experimenting with that.

Well, we were writing weird and wonderful articles full of toilet humour for , but we got a tad told off…

But I'm glad you enjoyed reading my chair-raising story.

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I was thinking we could plant weird references to random consumer goods, and see if the algorithms picked up on that?

Maybe we could revolutionise advertising. You just need one slogan: "Buy random consumer goods!!!" That would be much cheaper than the current system, prices of the actual goods could be reduced, the time we save could be used for real /useful content on the television... I only see positive effects.

Or the adverts I always get. Let's say I bought a DVD or CD online – for weeks afterwards I'm bombarded with adverts for that very CD or DVD I've just bought. I own it now, I just bought it, I don't want to buy another one immediately after owning my first copy. If I'd wanted to buy two at the same time, I would have ordered two at the same time.

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And...just after I read your post, I found this on the Guide's Twitter feed:

'Dear Amazon, I bought a toilet seat because I needed one. Necessity, not desire. I do not collect them. I am not a toilet seat addict. No matter how temptingly you email me, I'm not going to think, oh go on then, just one more toilet seat, I'll treat myself.'

Beautifully put...

Deep Thought may be watching you. But Deep Thought is a nincompoop.

I was discussing this with Sasha yesterday, but I've had another 'recommendations for you' e-mail from Amazon this morning. Ten years ago my son was born and, naturally, we bought baby things. I'm still regularly getting 'recommended for you: boy's baby things' adverts. We do not need more blue rattles. He's not a baby any more, he's ten.

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Maybe they think it is time for you to have another one. But how they know it will be a boy again is a mystery to me as well...

Also, why can't a girl happily drop a blue rattle from her pram, eh? It's a bit young for gender stereotypes, isn't it?

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In the end stereotypes catch up.... My ten year old son was very happy with his pink drinking bottle for ice hockey (at least up till last week, now he has a white one) He chose the pink one himself, and then had to explain to the girls in his team they couldn't have it.