Last updated 07:23, Friday, 11 April 2008

THIS week I have been having a gripe about packaging.

It all started when I was trying to open a bottle of bleach. SQUEEZE PADS AND TWIST said the instructions, but after a good five minutes of pad squeezing I was no nearer twisting, so I gave up. To paraphrase Shirley Conran, life is too short to squeeze a pad.

Things didn’t get any better when I decided to open a new toothbrush. Easy enough you may think. Wrong.

The brush came, like most toothbrushes, enclosed in a plastic blister stuck to a piece of card.

The back of the card had perforations, but it didn’t say anything about squeezing or pressing, so I thought all I had to do was push the brush through. Wrong again. It took 10 minutes of hacking with a pair of nail scissors before I managed to liberate the brush.

There was only one thing to do after all that frustration, and that was have a cup of tea and a gypsy cream.

Would you believe it, our only biscuits (and I want to know what happened to my secret stash of macaroons) were in an unopened packet.

I broke a couple of nails trying to open the packet at the opening before giving up and slashing it down the middle with the fish filleting knife.

All that remained was to open the new pack of tea bags. I tried opening them the right way up, I tried opening them upside down.In the end I took the scissors and cut right across the top.

As I threw the top bit away, I noticed, in large capital letters, the legend: NEW! NOW IN EASY-TO-OPEN RECLOSEABLE PACK.

What I need now is an aspirin. I shall have to find a child to open the childproof container.