I discovered an interesting new facial care routine. Well, I say discovered. What I mean is "A thing in a box arrived on my doorstep and I feel compelled to now pretend it is brilliant because otherwise I will have to answer all manner of complicated questions."

It's always nice to receive surprises, and even more so when they appear to be quite expensive pieces of facial-buffing technology. The kind of thing that you might, say, stick a battery in, hold to your face and wait, patiently, while it foams up, rubs, buffs, polishes and makes you more beautiful than the face of god itself. And that's incredible. I mean, all that technology, all that innovation, all that power and research and time spent in development, just to reproduce a high-tech version of the flannel.  It's remarkable, the power of human ingenuity.

Still, it's great to receive something you haven't been expecting, even if it is something of questionable point. But surprises are always nice.

Which makes it sound as if I have been taking kickbacks, bribes. Accepting free samples from manufacturers in return for positive reviews or mentions in one of the blogs I write for.  Sadly, that is not the case.

No. It means I've been internet shopping while drunk again.

There's always  - no, not always, that would be too predictable - there's reasonably often this point, a few days after a really good night out, when a small brown box will arrive from Amazon. I will stare at it, frowning, slightly, wondering if there is any faint possibility that it is something sensible, like a potato peeler, or a pencil, or that copy of  'Managing Your Minuscule Budget For Dummies' that I really should be picking up sometime around now.

But no. It will be one of those things for which companies inevitably book adverts late at night, when people will be weak, or tired, or in some other way incapacitated and more likely to buy something they really, really don't need.

"Buy this" they say "in a matter of only a couple of days, every single problem you've ever had with your skin, your weight, your hair or any other part of your appearance will disappear. And it's only 19.95! AND you get a free gift!" Which is very nice of them, and very generous, but the only really fair free gift would be a badge saying 'MORON', which would, at least, help deter me from the last time.

And so I end up with revolutionary scrubs, ground-breaking pluckers, vibrating flannels and the occasional ineffectual diet pill. All plopping through my letterbox and sitting, smugly on the doormat. All, a month later, sitting on my shelf, collecting dust, mocking me and my continually hopeful - yet lazy - attitude to self improvement.

So here's the plan: someone needs to lock the internet. Not every night, just on nights when I've been out and/or had more than three glasses of wine with dinner. Or just lock that really specific programme where you can look up things that you've just seen on the television and then spooge money up the wall on them. You know the one. Google.

If someone would arrange that, that would be great.