• Get your order in

  What's the story with online Christmas gifts? There are still 42 shopping days until Christmas, and already the sounds of sleigh bells ringing and holy children singing are getting louder in department stores and supermarkets. While retailers will be growing more frenzied, streets more packed and consumers more panicked in coming weeks, canny shoppers are surfing the web, saving themselves all the heartache - and plenty of money, too. p
  

• Forty-five minutes in a call-queue for a full mailbox

  We've Got Mail: Conor O'Dea from Kilmainham in Dublin has been left seething by the shabby treatment he says he has received from Smart Telecom's customer service since most of its customers had their service suspended and its financial difficulties became public last month. Some 40,000 phone line customers were told to go elsewhere while Smart said it would hang on to its 17,000 broadband customers, including O'Dea. Except it hasn't done a good job of hanging on to him. p
  

• Value for Money

  Conor Pope reviews frozen beef burgers  p
  

• Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down

  Thumbs Up/Cheese sandwich: Visitors to the basement of Arnotts' Dublin store in recent days will have noticed the newest branch of the excellent Sheridan's Cheesemonger which has found a home sandwiched between the Gap concession and the suits. p
  

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