Gifts to fill your stockings (and hold-ups). Satsumas may be traditional, but memorable they’re not! Dump the fruit and fill your stockings with something different … leave your list pinned to his pillow (or somewhere equally subtle).
How about some Wellies for looking glam in the garden (and for making the neighbours gossip about you)? My old favourite shopping website — www.boden.co.uk — does the best winter wellies in town (wherever that may be). In a choice of daisy, polka dot and flower prints, gardening will never be the same. To you, £45.
Oh and of course, you can’t not add a sexy pair of undies to your list. Boxing Day just wouldn’t be the same without them. Go to www.agentprovocateur.com for the ultimate in provocative underwear (and the most delicious perfume I have owned in years).
Toys for the boys
The way to a man’s heart is definitely through his gadgets
Try www.made4men.co.uk — it’s as easy as plum pudding, and has everything from discreet black condom cases to a bookmark reminder that tells you how many pages you have read!
Or how about www.debenhams.com for anything from an electric ice scraper at £10 to a union jack duck for him to play in the bath with (when he doesn’t have you, of course!) For just a fiver.
1,001 things every woman should know before Christmas
Why do some people loathe Brussels sprouts?
Science has an answer that even your mum can’t argue with. Your fear and loathing of Brussels might be down to your genes. “There are 80 genes that help people taste bitter foods,” explains Mick O’Hare from New Scientist magazine. “But some people have a set of genes that mean they have a taste receptor others don’t have. They can taste glucosinolate (mustard oil), the bitter compound in sprouts, while others can’t.” Now didn’t you always want to know that?
Who invented the Christmas cracker?
It’s hard to imagine Christmas dinner without a ‘made a Taiwan’ ring or a plastic moustache — so a big round of applause for Tom Smith, way back in 1847. On a trip to Paris, the East London confectioner discovered the ’bonbon’, a sugar almond wrapped in tissue paper. He brought some back to the UK to sell and they went down a storm.
To boost sales further he came up with the idea of inserting love poems into the wrappers. Then the noise of a log fire gave Smith the idea to make the bonbon crackle. So, using the friction of the wrapper breaking, Smith created the ’pop’ that has since developed into the ‘snap’ of today’s crackers.
‘Tis the season to shop …
… until you drop, so the publication of India Knight’s latest offering couldn’t have been better timed. Taking a break from novel writing, Knight has produced The Shops, an anecdotal shopping guide that is equal parts memoir and information service.
Ultimately this is a comfort read, with generous dollops of advice. Reading it is a bit like curling up for an afternoon with a whole pile of Sunday newspaper supplements for company.
Scattered between stories about shopping with her mum, dealing with snooty shop assistants and buying wedding dresses are all the best shopping addresses that Knight has collected in the course of a lifetime’s research.
Okay, so some of it veers into Just17 territory (’Seven really cheap make-up treats’ etc.), but the chapter on food and drink contains useful web addresses, and as a beauty junkie I can say that Knight really knows her stuff when it comes to treatments.
So, if you want to know who gives great facials, which are the best websites for organic food and — most importantly — where to buy all your Christmas presents, then this book is for you. Shopaholic? Stick it on your Christmas list. Amazon, £6.49
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