Wakey Wakey

Some people are night people and others are early birds.

I put myself in the latter category in that I am, in our family, usually the first to go to bed but then easily the first to get up in the morning. Being a light sleeper I do tend to be awake at the first of the dawn chorus and annoyingly before the alarm, carefully set the night before, goes off. There is nothing more frustrating than that.

Of course there is still a reliance on a mechanical means of triggering getting out of bed.

This could be from an old fashioned, wind-up noisy ticking alarm clock with raucous hammer induced bells or from something a bit more sophisticated such as a combined clock radio to ease you into the day with the sound of the spoken word or a commercial music channel. Both of these bits of equipment only work, however, when there is a willingness to actually respond and physically get out of bed.

A snooze or delay function is dangerous in that hitting the button to initiate the setting gives a false sense of luxury and urgency at a time when holding down a job or a commitment by at least arriving on time is critical.

We have all dozed through an alarm call only to come to that horrible realisation that we have overslept with mayhem and panic the only possible consequences.

Where it has been particularly important to get up and out of the house I have doubled up on timekeeping and alarms with the bedside clock radio and a simultaneous alert on my mobile phone. Even with such back-up precautions there is still a risk of failure from a power-cut to the mains electricity supply, a depleted battery or just incorrectly setting the time to a PM rather than an AM hour.

Being an early bird I do not, generally have a great difficulty in getting up but there are those for whom that is a problem.

Many inventors have pondered this issue and crazy devices and appliances have featured in popular fiction and movies, most memorable being the animated Wallace and Gromit example.

An Australian inventor has demonstrated an alarm clock that, with an attached arm positioned above the head of the sleeping person just slaps you about until you get out of bed.

I recently came across an ingenious gadget manufactured by the Clocky Company which is now widely available to purchase.

Unlike any ordinary alarm clock, Clocky gives you just one chance to get out of bed.

As soon as you hit snooze, Clocky will jump off your bedside table or cabinet and start wheeling and beeping persistently around your bedroom in search of a hiding place. You will be wide awake before you know what has hit you.

Clocky is specifically marketed ar anyone who finds weekday mornings a real struggle, whether that is a family member, friend, colleague or even a teenager.

On line reviews have included the following:

"When the alarm first goes off in the morning you think to yourself 'Why did I get such an annoying alarm clock?' Then you have to get out of bed on time and 20 minutes later you realise you are actually on time and think 'I love that alarm clock'. I have no snooze set so that I can't cheat and hold it as I have heard many people do, so it jumps off the bedside table straight away and starts rolling round the room. Depending on what floor it drops onto, the noise of it dropping onto the floor will probably wake you up instead of the beeping but the beeps are so annoying you can't ignore them so have to get up to turn it off. Just don't use this alarm clock if you need to get up without waking other people up. It turns out they do wake up and get very annoyed at the fact your alarm clock works too well"

and

"The only negative point is that I have bought this clock towards the end of the school year.
It is fantastic - when the allotted time comes, Clocky leaps off his TV unit and starts motoring about the floor like a hyperactive R2-D2 (that's the best way I can describe it). My teenage son used to immediately turn his alarm off and go back to sleep, but now he has to get out of bed and stop the awful racket. And that's him up"

and

"Cannot get a better alarm clock for doing exactly what an alarm clock is supposed to do. Perfect.
I love Clocky! Clocky is very mean because every morning I wake up to some really annoying beeping sounds first R2D2 noises next just beeping noises! But the main thing is, is that he/she (Clocky) really works, I immediately get out of bed to chase Clocky and turn him off!I recommend Clocky because he really works"

If you are one of those people who just prolong getting up in the morning this ingenious device could be just the thing and at £40 a reasonable investment for perhaps the best start to a working day.