I love a free gift. As a child I remember drinking lots of Cherry Cola to collect ring pulls.

When I’d amassed enough I redeemed them for a small plastic 110m camera.

I loved that camera because I thought it looked like something a spy would use.

As it turned out, aged ten I didn’t have a lot of espionage work coming my way and Mum and Dad wouldn’t pay to get all of my films developed.

I don’t blame them, they’d just spent hundreds on fizzy drinks.

Even I don’t understand why we are seeing free gifts used to persuade people to get vaccinated.

In America some states offer a free beer with a jab.

You get something that makes you healthier and something that makes you less healthy. It keeps the balance in the universe.

Elsewhere in America you can get a free lottery scratch card with a vaccine shot. If you’re the kind of person who likes to gamble you’re probably going without vaccines or masks and seeing what happens.

In Thailand there’s a cow raffle to boost vaccine take up.

We could do that over here. Not with the AstraZeneca and Pfizer ones but with the Mooderna. The ten year old version of me would have loved that joke.

A lot of these deals don’t make sense. Some people are set against the idea of being vaccinated, they read their “science” on Facebook and think it’s a conspiracy, but if you offer them a pint they’ll change their mind?

There is one scheme that makes perfect sense. In America some dating apps are offering premium service if you get vaccinated before July 4th.

These are people who are trying to meet up with strangers in the hope of getting very much closer than two metres. It’s for the best to get them vaccinated.

The dating apps should also come with free contraception and some soap.

It’s a few weeks till I get my second dose and if I were to be offered a free beer or a lottery card I’d willingly accept it.

I’d probably turn down the cow because my back garden isn’t big enough. I’d also turn down the premium dating app because my other half would be furious and I’d end up sleeping in the back garden, which as we have just heard, isn’t big enough.

Call me old fashioned but I think the best thing you get for free when you get the vaccine is the production of antibodies.

That and an excuse to pretend you feel a little under the weather for three days so you can do less around the house.