James Blunt is so 2005, Alan Titchmarsh is having a quiet period and I can't bring myself to buy a Maeve Binchy "novel". No, not even online. So with Mother's Day quickly approaching, I'm under pressure to come up with a present that satisfies both my mother and, more importantly, me as the present-giver (missing the point, moi?).

I've heard of mothers that communicate through their Blackberry, and I have friends that stay in contact with their family purely through text message, but in our family, we're still working through the "mobile phones are designed to receive calls as well as make calls" issue. I did get a text message from my mum once, but decoding “wgat dn wmt want dmp agpgptmap” proved too much for me, and I resorted to a phone call. For those that won't rest until they've cracked the code I'll short cut the process. I was apparently being asked what I wanted for Christmas. I can only assume that someone had only given a very basic explanation of predictive text. Big mistake.

What I need is the "Robbie Williams - Swing When You're Winning" of the gadget world. A modern take on an old classic, which is probably the nicest review of that album that Mr Williams has ever received.

There are such products out there. Photo printers are perfect gift material (as long as you've managed to migrate said gift receiver from 30mm film cameras). Epson, HP, Kodak - everyone seems to now make a photo printer where you just insert your memory card and press go. If it encourages people to get their photos off their digital cameras I'm all for it. I'm fed up with viewing people's holiday snaps on a screen the size of a compact mirror.

Digital radios are also a winner. It's like a normal radio, only easier. The Pure Tempus-1 seems to do all that my mother will ever need. It displays all the stations and she just has to pick one. No more pesky tuning in. The fact that once tuned in to Radio 2 the tuning facility will never be needed again is a fact I'll try to ignore.

And one particularly suited to my mother is Vodafone's Simply phone. It makes phone calls and sends texts. That's it. Whilst the thought of that personally horrifies me, I can see the advantage for those that are happy with a camera to take pictures, a TV to watch Gardener's World on and a radio to listen to music on. Alternatively, eBay a phone from 1997. I'm sure it will be essentially the same.

Ironically, I'm safe from the wrath of my own mother when she finds I've painted her as Luddite of all Luddites, as this article will forever reside on the Internet (which she has yet to come across). She'll never know the thought that went into getting her … oh ok, I bought the Maeve Binchy novel.

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