Hot tubs are selling like hot cakes, but I’m afraid the idea leaves me cold

For all I know, you might be reading this while reclining in one. There you are, sitting in the bubbly warm water in your garden with a plate of kippers just off to the side. Deep down, you know this is a bit embarrassing, but you’re trying to pretend otherwise while the neighbours look on from their upstairs window, sniggering.

“Ignore them!” you’re telling yourself, while shaking your copy of The Sunday Telegraph to stop it getting damp and wrinkly, “They’re just jealous. I’m having a lovely time and am genuinely delighted that my wife persuaded us to spend several hundred pounds on the last hot tub from B&Q so I can sit outside, marinating in my own juices, even though we’ve got a perfectly good bath upstairs.”

There have been low moments in the past 12 weeks, but I humbly suggest the mania for hot tubs proves that we’re finally out of marbles. Sales are up 490 per cent on eBay, and Argos has sold out. In the market for a Lay-Z-Spa Miami inflatable for four people? I’m afraid you’ll have to wait, since the company is facing such demand in the UK that they’ve had to implement an Ocado-style queuing system. As I write this, it’s 8.41am on Thursday morning and I’m 79th in the queue. Seventy-ninth! Who are the other 78 lunatics clamouring to buy a hot tub before 9am on a weekday? Like the Werther’s Original grandpa, it makes me fondly recall the days when all we used to queue for at this time was a takeaway coffee.

A member of my family, who wishes to remain anonymous, splashed out on a hot tub a few weeks ago and has been merrily peppering the family WhatsApp group with pictures of him and his girlfriend sitting in the thing. Perhaps, given the continuing debate about whether we’re going to be able