Counting On Experience.

I keep a portable electric fan heater in my office for use on cold winter nights when the wall-mounted storage heater is coming to the end of its diurnal tether. The one I have at the moment was cheap and isn’t very good, so I decided to be prepared for the dark time and buy a better one.

And so I searched the Argos website because I know from past experience that they have a comprehensive range of products running the price spectrum from ridiculously cheap to extortionately expensive, and in the process of so doing I read some of the customer reviews. I mean, what better way is there to assess the likely quality of a thing than by hearing from those who have used it?

It didn’t quite work out that way. I hadn’t realised that the mental faculties possessed by those who write reviews for Argos products are a little less than encouraging. In fact, I admit to a suspicion that they are probably drawn from the ranks of the YouTube rejects, and low doesn’t get much lower than that. I offer three examples to demonstrate my point:

Person A said: It gives out plenty of heat but I wish it wouldn’t keep melting the plug and making it stick to the wall socket.

Person B said: The heater is fine but the cable isn’t very long and it won’t work with an extension lead.

Person C said: This is an excellent product. I haven’t used it yet but I’m sure it will be fine.

I’m not making this up. That really is what they said. So now I offer it to a voting process to decide which of the three should be given the Useless Product Review of the Year Award. Being something of a rationalist at heart, I think I have to go for Person C, though the picture engendered by Person A is clearly the funniest. As for my final choice of heater, I will clearly have to prepare myself for yet another of life’s leaps into the dark.