SPEAKING of Christmas, Lakeland has excelled itself this year.

Its website already bulges with nutty household knick-knacks such as electric omelette makers and tea bag squeezers; boiled egg toppers and handbag lights along with battery operated milk frothers, shelf organisers and waxed jam jar covers.

I like to think that Lakeland’s bestsellers say more about our collective psyche than any social study could. Namely that, despite everything, we are still a nation of crumb catchers and de-scalers, devotees of the squeegee, scraper and the baking tray organiser.

Particularly now, when everyone is spending so much time at home.

My favourite new festive gadget is this…well, what is it? A Cheese Sunbed? Look closer and you will see it is actually something called a Cheese Melter (£59.99), designed for a type of cheese called Raclette. It holds more than two and a half pounds of said cheese and makes it easy, Lakeland promise, to serve a ‘Swiss-style feast’. Just the thing to make the kind of late night snack that you will never wake up from. This gadget is the perfect gift for a cheese-aholic friend who doesn’t own a grill, an oven, a stove top or an ounce of common sense. Or anyone who, like Pippa Middleton perhaps, needs a gadget and instructions on how to successfully melt meltable cheese.