Why not download our free ebook (originally £8.99) "How to get anything for free!" right here for free BlagBack Day 25: Toys!

Today we add a selection of toys to the auction stash. Not long left now until we start the ball rolling so get those bidding fingers ready:

Lost: The Game

Not wanting to leave us hanging for 6 months the creators of the show have put together a Lost board game which revolves around key characters and events from the show itself. Rather than create a standard board game with set events such as “Go straight down the hatch, do not pass Go” they’ve opted to include a board which you build yourself from assorted tiles. Each of these tiles are laid face down on the board in a 4 x 4 grid, and they each contain a different location from the show. Review. Thanks re:creation

Bullseye


Rather than watering down the TV show Upstarts have decided to make the board game as faithful as they could, in fact the only real thing missing is the spelling round and celebrity bit for charity, which you can always recreate if you manage to grab Pat Sharp for a quick game. As the game is so faithful it takes a little bit of time to familiarise yourself with the rules the first time around but once you work out how much money to award for each round you’ll be sorted. All you need to do then is find a nail to hang up the darts board and you’re good to go. Review. Thanks Upstarts

Finger Beats Mixer
Words really can't describe the Finger Beats Mixer (and neither can a video or image doh). It's a quirky touch sensitive beat box which has a mixture of different tracks that you can layer on top of each other.Essentially there's a mixture of up tempo electro pop such as clicking fingers, a tap of a drum, piano keys and cymbols. There's eight in all and there's a few different ways you can mash them together in order to create some sort of music.

Zing – Launch Your Lunch by Fred
My inner child and inner adult really can’t decide where to place this. On the one hand it’s the most pointless product we’ve ever reviewed, on the other it’s a marvel of fun, mess and carnage. One thing is certain it’s effective at what it aims to do, catapulting lunch far across the room. In essence its the head of a spoon with a bendy handle and it works for anything from mayonnaise to dirt. There’s an art to finding food that is runny enough to rest on the spoon (grapes are a no-no) but not too sticky that it sticks to the spoon altogether. Review Thanks Kim and Jason.

Why not download our free ebook (originally £8.99) "How to get anything for free!" right here for free BlagBack Day 19: JML Join the party

I am pleased to announce that the kind folks at JML have donated a range of products to the charity auction ranging from disk cleaners to clap activated plugs. You can view the products in the shot below and get your bidding fingers ready for when auction time comes:



JML have also provided us with plenty of other products over the years, which you learn more about below. Please note that these are not included in the auction.

JML VacPack
JML Stickup Bulb
JML Universal Spanner
JML Tribod
Mini Max Kitchen Mill
Toastabags
Claritweeze

Thanks JML

Why not download our free ebook (originally £8.99) "How to get anything for free!" right here for free Welcome to the Free World - Guide to getting free stuff

Courtesy of World Business News and CNBC here's our piece on getting free stuff, look out for our table of freebies half way through(many of which will be in the auction!)

Why not download our free ebook (originally £8.99) "How to get anything for free!" right here for free Catcha Beast / Swarm

Two new additions to the auction couresy of Bandai and Revell:

Catcha Beast: Reel It In!
First we have the clearly Pokemon inspired Catcha Beast: Reel It In! which if it was a jingle would sound almost identical to the end lyrics to said theme song "Catch Em All: Pokemon". It even comes in Red and Blue versions, both of which are required to catch 'em all.

What does make it unique (and has led to 1.5 million sales in Asia since 2006) is that rather than providing a built in world to walk around, you scan the device around in a 360 degree motion, as if the creature was in your own home, park or anywhere you visit.

This gives you over 100 beasts to capture (either with both versions of the game, or by trading with friends) by reeling them in, with the reel on the side of the unit. Quite a tricky task, but one that is down to your own actions and not a random roll of the dice, so it they do get away you feel less cheated than over games of the genre. Once you have them you can battle against friends, or just marvell at your collection. Value: £19.99

You can catch this in the BlagBack auction. Thanks Bandai!

Swarm - Flying bugs!
Remote control helicopters are one thing, but a remote control bug? Now that's sure to give little boys everyone a fantastic change to 'bug' their parents and siblings. Complete with two counter rotating blades that keep it airborne the Swarm is a rather unique distration for a quiet Friday afternoon.

You can be up and flying within moments of removing it from the box, and the remote control recharges the Swarm through a simple connection. LED's even let you know when it's all charged up and ready to go. Watch out family, there's a Swarm coming! Value: £24.99

You can catch this in the BlagBack auction. Thanks Revell!

Why not download our free ebook (originally £8.99) "How to get anything for free!" right here for free BlagBack Day 8: Eddingtons We Salute You!

Today we salute Eddingtons who have provided more than their fair share of products for us to review over the years, many of which will now be joining the other products in our charity auction. Here's a quick roundup of a very small selection of what they have to offer (don't forget all this and more can be yours at the end of the month so keep em peeled).

The Diablo



In essence ‘The Diablo’ is a toaster which you place on the hob to create all manner of creations. More than just a humble sandwich toaster it also allows you the pleasure of using rye, pita breads, tortillas and pastry to create even more advanced creations than I ever thought possible as a child. To get your mind flowing a list of recipes is included that teach you how to make pizza, burittos, and even apple pies. Full Review

Rub Away


Sometimes it’s easy to be a cynic and with the Rub-Away I’ve got to admit I had my doubts. A bar that can take away bad odors from your hands including onion, garlic and diesel oil smells? At first I thought it wasn't working, but on adding a little soap was pleased with the results. The ideal way to remove smells from your hands before a romantic meal. Full Review

And not forgetting the Squirrel Nut Cracker acquired on Day One:

Squirrel Nut Cracker

Life is strangely poetic at times. After seeing the Nutcracker ballet I was chuffed when a mere few days later an actual Nutcracker should pop through the door from Eddingtons. Even better I’d missed out on buying a Nutcracker at the show so this product was already in my good books on arrival. Full Review

And some brand new products as well:

Mu Products


A couple of interesting items here. First the Mu Cloth which is a two in one dish cloth. Comprising of a dishcloth with a built it scrubber it allows you to wash your dishes and then get stuck in to the tough bits without the need to switch back and forth. Also rather neat is Mu Bamboo a dishcloth made 80% from natural bamboo. It feels the same as a normal dishcloth but is an interesting gift for a fan of eco friendly products.

Compost Pail



Eddingtons also provided a rather neat kit to make your own compost, unfortunately that's exactly what we did prior to starting this auction. It turned out great, although you do have to decide when to stop adding in food, and when to wait for it to turn (otherwise you get compost at the bottom and leftover veg on top getting in the way). Oh and a smell filter stopped our kitchen spelling disgusting as well.

The only health and safety question is whether we can give it away now. Let us know in the comments, do you want to also win the compost we made? Perhaps not...

Thanks Eddingtons!

Why not download our free ebook (originally £8.99) "How to get anything for free!" right here for free BlagBack Day 4: Something Old, Something New

Whilst I continue to encourage PR companies to donate their unwanted product samples to our charity auction, one of the problem with donating many of my own free products is that well, you wouldn’t want them. For example the simplehuman bin has been filled with rubbish for over a year and as for any cosmetics they’re either used up completely or way past their open dates. Food is no better, again either consumed or past its date (in some cases before we’d even had chance to eat them).

Although that rules two categories out of our past glory days it still leaves many more, and it is from these we will draw today’s additions to the auction:

The Good Book


Eventually we were always going to receive ‘The Good Book’ to review, but this isn’t it. Someone’s cut a ruddy big hole in the middle of it, and smuggled inside a hip flask. Very sneaky! Of course the first clue that something isn’t quite right is the Latin inscription on the front “Cogito Sumere Potum Alterum” which when translated actually says “I think I’ll have another drink”! Thanks Suck UK

Type and Write Pad


Whilst it won’t tuck in your shirt for you the Type and Write stand will help you sit up straight and write better by giving you a writing stand that will allow you to write in a way that has the best effect on your back. You can also position a laptop on the stand to give yourself an elevated position for typing out emails, drawing pie charts etc. Thanks Thinking Gifts.com.

The Quadrilateral


This tricky puzzle had us baffled on review, so much so we couldn’t even complete it. The basic premise is simple. Four rings are connected by a range of colored strings and your goal is to free them from the other rings. But the strings are too short to make it easy for you, good luck. Thanks The Mad Cow Company.co.uk

Turtle Bags

Corporate Social Responsibility is everywhere these days. It concerns the onus placed on companies to act in an Environmentally and Ethically sound way, and in no bigger area has this affected the consumer recently than with plastic bags. Here's Solution Number One... Thanks Turtle Bags

Today sees the first day back to work for many PR firms, here’s hoping they will join us in the donations. Who will be first?

Why not download our free ebook (originally £8.99) "How to get anything for free!" right here for free Charity Quest Day One

The principle behind my charity quest is simple. I ask a few companies for unwanted product samples, and offer to review them or the company behind them. It’s what got me 250 products in the past, only this time I’d also be raffling off every product I receive in January in a charity auction.

The tricky thing is, once you mention a charity people want to know a lot more about what you’re doing, why they should care, how it will affect their corporate image etc. Things become messy. Thankfully all of this is explained here.

So I thought that to start the ball rolling I’d put my money where my mouth is and donate a ton of my own freebies to the auction. In doing so I hope to encourage companies, PR agencies and journalists with unwanted product review samples to say “we don’t need these samples stuffing up the office any more, why not get rid of them and get some exposure for our company as well.”.

So for day one here’s five products you will see in the auction (don’t worry I’ll be donating lots more in the days to come), all of which were attained through me spending no money of my own which will now be sold for charity.

AZBO's

Although a strange freebie, the AZBO's were interesting for their quantity alone. Six figures will be included in the auction which are brilliant bits of satire ranging from chubby men to tarty women to blingged up rappers. Nice, if unusual gifts. Value: £60. Thanks Nemesis Now

Eddingtons: Squirrel Nut Cracker

Life is strangely poetic at times. After seeing the Nutcracker ballet I was chuffed when a mere few days later an actual Nutcracker should pop through the door from Eddingtons. Even better I’d missed out on buying a Nutcracker at the show so this product was already in my good books on arrival. Thanks Eddingtons

Go! Go! Asian

Generally when a product arrives I can take one look at the packaging and ascertain straight away what it’s for and how to use it. So when “Go! Go! Asian, Koi Garden Green Tea Antioxidant” arrived I wasn’t at all sure what to do on name alone. Maybe our auction winner will be? Here's hoping. Thanks Go! Go! Beauty

eJay Virtual Sounds 1-3

There used to be a point where every video game included a sound test mode where you could listen to second long sound clips from the game. So you’d hear Sonic grab a ring or Mario go “hoo-hoo I got it”. Playing Virtual Sounds is almost exactly the same experience, a sequence of sound clips you can play one by one. Thanks eJay

The O.C Game

Officially licensed board games seem to be everywhere these days. They seem to magically fill the void between seasons and sequels by letting you act out the lives of your favourite characters and invent your own plot lines. The OC Game on the other hand takes another approach and instead of giving you a fantasy scenario to develop it chooses to test your knowledge of the first few seasons of the show. Thanks re:creation plc

We end the first day with over £100 of products in the bag to be auctioned off for charity but will any other companies get involved? And can the selfish concept of freebie grabbing and “something for nothing” really be applied to help out a good cause? I dunno… join me Monday and maybe I will….