Do you have trouble waking up in the morning? Do you bury your head under a pillow and sleep though the alarm no matter how noisy?

If so, I have good news for you — an alarm clock that you can’t ignore.

It’s the flying alarm clock and it works like this. When the alarm goes off, it launches a rotor into the air. And this rotor zooms about your room as the alarm keeps on sounding.

So far so good.

The beauty of the system — if beauty is the right word — is that the alarm will keep on sounding until you crank out of bed, track down the flying rotor and jam it back onto the alarm clock.

At which point the alarm stops and by then you should be well and truly up. Not, perhaps, happy, but certainly awake.

I uncovered this little wonder in the Hammacher Schlemmer catalogue, a treasure house of items you never really knew you needed until you started browsing.

For example, the hydrofoil water scooter. No batteries, no fuel. It looks vaguely like a wheelless bicycle frame. As well as I can figure out, you put this in the water where — presumably — it floats. Then, you hop on a little landing stage at the back of this contraption, grasp the handle bars and propel yourself by hoping up and down, attaining impressive speeds and giving yourself a good workout. You wear a life jacket with this and I can see why.

The catalogue is stuffed with summery items such as a child’s skateboard, which comes with a stand-up handle, or a tricycle — not bicycle — built for two. On a more grown-up note — although I’m not sure that’s the way to put it — is the motorized pool lounger. You inflate it, stick in the required number of batteries, slide it into your swimming pool and then hop in, leaning back and sticking out your legs. Then you steer yourself around using a couple of joysticks. Yes, there is a drinks holder and no, I don’t think one would venture into white water with it.

It’s fair to say that the catalogue has any number of offerings that are both clever and useful. I am attracted to the robotic floor vacuum, which you charge up and then dump into the room of your choice. You then leave it utterly alone and the vacuum sidles about the room, avoiding furniture and other obstacles, cleaning away. It can clean a good-sized room in about an hour. Frankly, three or four of these little gizmos would make life a lot easier.

Me, I must have a liking for the odder and not too expensive items in the catalogue. Indeed, I received one of their remote control helicopters for Christmas and am waiting for the wind to die down before I take it outside. (Yes, I have flown it in the house but did a modest amount of damage.) We also own their golf-ball-finding glasses, which make white golf balls stand out where various people hit them into our partly mowed front field.

And if I were still a golfer I would be tempted by their remote-control golf ball. This looks like a high-quality ball and comes with a hand-held small remote control. I assume you put the ball on the green in place of whatever your victim is using and then use the remote control to make the putts wander off in all directions. (Now that I reflect on this, I would be tempted only if I were 13 again; golf can be a serious business.)

Last, but certainly not least, the catalogue brings one the portable, wood-burning hot tub. Strange but true, it needs no electricity or plumbing and can hold four adults. You just cart it off to a likely location, dump in 200 gallons of water and light the fire basket off to one side. Water then is conducted around the coils in the fire basket and back into the tub, heating as it goes. The price tag is something like US$6,000.

Me, I’m more tempted by the flying alarm clock, which rings in around US$40. IE