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Five gifts from AI that show it doesn't know the real you

YOU thought AI understood you and knew your likes and dislikes. But your faith in your new digital best friend was shaken when it got you these gifts: 

StairMaster

AI has gleaned that you live in a ground-floor flat, use the lifts at work and do pathetically little exercise, so it wants to give you one of these substitute staircase torture machines to boost your cardio. Maybe it’s time to present a different image online, by posting about fictional Couch to 5K progress and faking your step count. Simply duct tape your iPhone to your cat and AI will think you have a busy, if unusual, exercise regime of wandering the streets every night looking for sexual partners.

Camping in the Scottish Highlands

Just because you once claimed to love the outdoors out of dating-profile desperation and gave Holiday Inn Express a shitty rating because it’s Holiday Inn Express, doesn’t mean you want to spend a week in a tent in the Cairngorms. What about all the Insta posts of you faking fun in European capital cities with companions whose names you barely remember? If you’re going to pissing, chilly Scotland, your AI is coming with you on your phone. If the f**ker freezes solid, it can add that to its learning.

Hello Fresh membership

Is AI suggesting you’re incapable of providing yourself with wholesome meals? All those Deliveroo orders are pretty incontrovertible evidence, but you have a busy job and a responsibility to your streaming services. Who’s got time to source fresh ingredients and cook from scratch when you’re still only on season nine of The Walking Dead? Out of courtesy you’ve decided to try it. At least you’ll get an Insta post out of whatever disappointing, fiddly slop you make tonight.

Dolls’ house

You might spend hours scrolling Zoopla fantasising about the perfect house you can’t buy because you haven’t got wealthy parents, but that doesn’t mean you have a love of houses per se. On the other hand, you would like to know what it’s like to own a beautiful Victorian town house with an elegant drawing room in which to take tea with charming, well-bred ladies. Even if they’re dolls. Go on then, you’ll take the risk of descending permanently into a deranged fantasy world.

Lovehoney selection box

AI has scraped your comments about sex or lack of and decided you need to spice up your love life with sex toys, a terrible idea no human friend would ever suggest. If you’re female and attached, let’s hope your partner is ready to have his penis rendered obsolete by a huge dildo with an unfair number of stimulating squirmy things. If you’re male and single you may find you’re not getting the most out of a selection of cock rings. Maybe you can combine both and play hoopla. 

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How to stop yourself sobering up between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve

THERE’S a whole week between the year’s two biggest piss-ups. If you want to keep the party going while you wait, stay half-cut with this guide: 

Establish a support network

It’s unreasonable to expect you to do this by yourself. If you want to stay shitfaced for six days straight, you’re going to need a network of close friends and relatives to supportively place another drink into your trembling hands. Don’t feel like a burden though – you’ll be repaying the favour by grabbing them a bottle whenever you stumble uncertainly to the fridge.

Indulge your triggers

People trying to achieve a life of sobriety avoid anything that will set off their vice. Since you’re taking the opposite approach, constantly expose yourself to temptation. Anything from lingering in the cheerful atmosphere of a pub to putting yourself in stressful situations where you desperately need alcohol to calm your nerves will work. Perhaps visit the roughest local hostelry wearing a ‘MORE IMMIGRATION NOW!’ T-shirt? As long as you struggle to form barely coherent sentences, you’re doing it right.

Pace yourself

This is a marathon, not a sprint. You’re trying to find the sweet spot where you’re more than tipsy but not quite paralytic. Going too soft will bring the crushing mundanity of the festive dead zone into harsh relief, whereas drinking too much could send you spiralling into an ill-timed hangover on New Year’s Eve. Don’t waste all of December 31st hunched miserably over a toilet puking your guts up. That’s what January 1st is for.

Eat the bare minimum

Seasoned pissheads already know that eating’s cheating, but it’s especially important to remember this disclaimer at Christmas. With so many slices of cured meat and Pringles tubes to hand, it’s all too easy to inadvertently graze your way to clearheadedness. If you must eat more than the bare minimum needed to keep you alive, opt for chocolate liqueurs to keep your blood alcohol level up.

Ignore your limits

Over the course of the week your body is going to try to tell you to stop knocking back booze and drink a healthy glass of water instead. At times like these you’ll need to tap reserves of physical and mental determination. By ignoring the limits of what your liver, bowels and brain cells can tolerate, you’ll reach new plateaus of intoxicated merriment. Have you got a drink problem? No, you’re powering through the infamous wall!

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