Madam clock...

"Disappointed" isn't just the name of an old Pet Shop Boys song. It was me, at the very moment when I discovered that the female version of this over-the-moon alarm clock, originally due out in May, has been pushed back to July. (: Oh, how the world trifles with me.

Meanwhile, I still have a lovely alarm clock that I'm growing to love...no conspiratorial buzzer, but instead one has the choice of waking to gentle cathedral tunes or ethereal wind chimes. Most days, it's the wind chimes that pull me back into consciousness. I keep it hidden under my bedside table in a dainty jacquard hatbox. (The only thing imaginably better than all of these would be to wake up to the clinking of a breakfast tray on its way to your bedside. But those things don't deliver themselves, now do they? Ahem.)