It is late. Here are four things that still work.
No judgement, no countdown clock designed to panic you, and no suggestion that you should have thought of this in October. Four options, ordered by how good they actually are rather than by how much they cost.
The four, in order of how good they are.
| Option | Arrives | How good it is | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| A patch | A card, immediately | Genuinely excellent, and nothing has to travel | It is £90 and they have to like the idea |
| A membership | Access at 08:00 on the day you name | Very good, and it lasts | It is a subscription, and some people dislike those |
| A digital gift card | Instantly, or Christmas morning | Fine, and honest | It is obviously a gift card |
| A scholarship share | A card, immediately | The best one on this list, for the right person | It is not a present for them at all |
Why there is no countdown clock on this page.
The standard design for a page like this is a large red timer counting down to a shipping cut-off, on the entirely correct theory that urgency sells.
We have not put one there because you already know it is late. That is why you are reading a page called Last Minute. Adding a clock to somebody who is already anxious about a present is a way of converting mild stress into a purchase they will regret, and regretted purchases come back in January.
There is a real cut-off, it is stated on the Christmas page in a table, and it is the twenty-second. That is enough.
The two-minute version.
Do you know what they are like?
If yes, a patch or a membership. If no, a gift card. That is the whole decision tree.
Do they drink?
If you are not sure, that rules out a third of the site and simplifies everything.
Do you have their email address?
Then everything on this page works. You do not need a postal address for any of it.
Buy it
Two minutes, including reading this.
And schedule it for the morning
A gift card arriving at eight on Christmas Day is a considerably better object than one arriving at nine at night on the twenty-fourth.
A gift card bought on the twenty-fourth is a better present than a hurried hamper bought on the eighteenth for somebody you were not sure about. The hamper is a guess with packaging on it; the card is a decision handed to the person best placed to make it. Buy the card and stop worrying about it.
What you get
- A patch, with a card and no delivery
- A membership, opening at 08:00 on a named morning
- A digital gift card, instantly or scheduled
- A share of an apprenticeship, with a card
- All four, at any hour, including Christmas Eve
What you very much do not
- Anything chilled, after the 19th
- Anything at all by courier, after the 22nd
- A printed card in time, after about the 18th
- Any judgement about how late you have left it
Last minute, questioned.
A digital gift card, a membership, a patch or a scholarship share, at any hour including midnight. Nothing physical, obviously.
A patch and a scholarship do not. A gift card does, slightly, and everybody has received one and been perfectly happy.
No. There is nothing to rush, because none of these four involves anything moving.
A patch, for somebody who would enjoy eleven months of a field. A scholarship share, for somebody who has everything. A gift card, for everybody else.
The one that is not about them at all.
Twenty-four hundred pounds towards an apprentice’s year, and their year as content.
