It's a beautiful day, so you go to the beach. When you get there you notice there is quite a breeze, so you jam your beach umbrella into the sand and position yourself beneath it. Now the wind gets stronger. It whips your pathetic sunshade straight out of the sand, and using the canvas as a sail propels the umbrella down the beach at 100 kmh.

The pointy top of the shade skewers an enormous Bulgarian tourist in the midriff, his throes of agony drive him backwards, he loses consciousness and topples, crushing an infant, the child's father has a heart attack from the fright, the Bulgarian's wife tries to give the father the kiss of life, at that moment the Bulgarian comes to and presumes the worst of his wife whom he accuses of faithlessness, and you get sunstroke because you have no cover.

What sort of a person are you anyway? All you had to do was purchase the Major Beach Buddy - designed by an Irishman living in Dubai - and your umbrella would never have taken flight. The Beach Buddy is essentially a giant plastic screw that grips far better than any spike in sand or earth; your sunshade, beach volleyball net, or whatever, fixes to the top of the device.

The Major Beach Buddy, retail price around £10 (€12.70), is available at: www.majorenterprises.com