You鈥檒l come home with stacks of them, half of which you鈥檒l never look at again. Here are some alternative uses for your unwanted cards

1. Start a new hobby collecting business cards. Everything you need to know about your fascinating new pastime is on the website of the International Business Card Collectors Club, at www.ibccsite.com/. Or donate them to an existing collector 鈥� self-styled 鈥渃ardeologist鈥� Steve Patterson of Knoxville, Tennessee, has a lifetime goal of 1 million.

2. Use them as emergency plectrums. A keen amateur guitar player swears you can get around half an hour鈥檚 use out of one.

3. Give them to your kids to turn into gift tags. Get them to decorate the printed side of each card with stickers or paints. Then fold the card in half, punch a hole in the corner and hey presto, instant tags for birthday and Christmas presents.

4. Create a fantasy fridge magnet game. Select cards with comedy names (we like Dutch ones) and long, pretentious American job titles. Then invest in a craft knife to cut them up, order some self-adhesive magnetic tape (available from www.fridge-magnets.net) and away you go.

5. Perform pain-free brush- offs. At the next conference you go to, keep your real business cards in one pocket and the post-MIPIM duds in another. Substitute someone else鈥檚 card for your own when making unwanted contacts.

6. Enter them in prize draws. That consultant from Antwerp will be thrilled when he wins a meal for two at your local curry house.

7. Build a house of cards. Better still, divide the cards between teams and tell them it鈥檚 a design competition for a secretive mega-rich client. (Useless fact: the Guinness World Record for a house of cards using playing cards is 7.71m high).

MIPIM 2005