There was a survey recently, printed by Ecologist magazine, on the little annoyances which render modern life more ugly. While some of the annoyances cited were a little surprising - even I cannot get irritated by bagged salad - and some, like the mobile phone, were highly debatable, the inclusion of junk mail seemed only right and fitting, writes Ann Marie Hourihane
If you live in suburban Dublin the past seven days might have brought you more printed material than you would have ever thought necessary: takeaway food - six items; new cars - three items, although one brochure was intended for a neighbour; home insulation - two copies of the same brochure on double glazing (I know we have our rows, but we do manage to pool most of our reading material); home insurance - one; affordable local cleaner (typical hourly rate, it said, €14.95); buying storage space in someone else's building (units from only €10, sounds interesting); an offer to provide a fresh approach to selling our home (no thanks); the B&Q advice on going green - amusing in itself; an advertisement for an art gallery; encouragement to switch current accounts to Ulster Bank; news from one of our TDs, bless him; and three requests for our old clothes, so that we might send them to Asia, Africa, Ukraine and something called Children's Foster home, Organisation 195220531.
I see now that this list is not really typical. There is only one message from a bank, for a start.
Also it is uncharacteristically short - perhaps due to the cessation in hostilities brought about by the bank holiday weekend.
Still, a 10-minute trip to the shops yesterday meant coming home to the two brochures on double glazing and a message which announced, rather spookily, that collection day was Friday.
I tried to explain to the man who was delivering the clothes message that we did not want any more of them - ever - but he explained apologetically that he did not speak English, and left me gibbering on the pavement.
One can only hope that he is being paid wages which reflect the organisation's philanthropic philosophy.
It's bad enough when you work from home, and spend your day sweeping unwanted bits of paper from your letterbox - you know, I could make a mess of my own hall if I felt like it.
But there is something peculiarly desolate about arriving home from a long day's work and having to push your front door across advertisements for ciabatta pizzas, whatever they are.
It is a truism of modern Ireland that suburban areas are deserted during the day, that nothing moves in the suburbs until the exhausted toddlers of the nation stumble home from the creche, longing to launch into the wine.
How happy the commuter family must be, then, to see its letter box jammed open to the elements (so much for the double glazing), advertising to the world that the commuter family is not at home for perhaps 13 hours a day.
This is to say nothing of the apartment dwellers, whose mail boxes are also often plainly visible from the street, spilling over with the junk mail that lets everybody know the occupants are not at home.
You don't have to be channelling Victor Meldrew - although I seem to be doing a damn fine job - to wonder who benefits from this constant stream of waste paper.
Although I personally find it interesting that B&Q is selling a wallpaper called Obsession (quite pretty), it would also be interesting to know how much of this unsolicited mail is ever read before it is automatically carried to the recycling bin, or used to start the fire.
It's not that we're opposed to marketing. One of my most beloved relatives works in direct marketing, so yes, our Christmas dinner is going to be particularly lively this year.
The problem with modern marketing is its genius at colonising the tiniest crevices of everyday life, so that any objection to it seems necessarily petty.
We live in a country where the national broadcaster has effectively sold the weather, having the weather forecasts sponsored by one company or another as it pleases.
But you can turn off the weather forecasts if you feel like it. Short of hammering barbed wire across your front door there doesn't seem to be a lot that you can do about junk mail.
And surely being a consumer includes the right to say no.
The thing is that in the marketplace right now it is assumed that every citizen is a willing customer unless he explicitly states otherwise. This, much more than the constant blizzard of advertisements we have become heir to, is something to be regretted.
So off we go to the Irish Direct Marketing Association website (info@idma.ie) only to be told, in a subsequent phone call, that the website is being updated. But you can have your name removed from the lists held by the IDMA's members by phoning 01 6610470.
The lists are revised every three months, so I'll let you know how I get on.