Lidl rocks.

Budget food and booze stuffs from Lidl you shouldn't think too hard about but once you do:

Dates: You've all heard of the Three Kings and their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, but what about the fourth king, the one who turned up with dates? Exactly. Dates are the Christmas version of the pumpkin at Halloween. They're everywhere you look for a month and nobody eats them. And with dates it's even trickier to hollow them out to put a candle in. They sell the all year round here.

Edible Chocolate Body Paint ( with body brush): In theory, edible chocolate body paint has much erotic potential. In practice though it's about as erotic as a bucket. The instructions tell you to warm the satisfyingly gloopy sauce, and "apply a thick coat". They probably mean of the sauce, don't put on a thick winter coat, it's not very erotic and you'll never get the stains out. Having painted chocolate onto your partner you're then supposed to "let nature take its course". Needless to say your brown goo-covered partner will look as if nature has taken its course and they will never be able to look at a Mars Bar again without a tear appearing in their eye.

Cans of wine: You can drink this in bed without risk of corkscrew-related injuries.

Advocaat: Nobody really knows what the hell this yellow stuff is but the moment you turn 70 you begin to crave it. It's made of egg yolk and alcohol.There's an interesting omelette opportunity somewhere.

Irish Meadow - cream and whiskey liquor: Yes, it's a copyright defying Baileys rip-off. But it's much cheaper and you don't have to endure those rubbish adverts full of yuppies miming and licking their lips in time to a trip-hop tune.

Pina Colada-style cocktail: Note the inclusion of the word "style". Coco Chanel pointed out that you can't buy style, but at £1.29 a bottle of this stuff we think we can finally prove her wrong.

1999 Vintage Cava: I carried out a blindfold taste test to determine whether anyone really could tell the difference between a Champagne and a Cava. They couldn't. The fact that the testees were all from a local primary school may have muddied the results but it's not an exact science.

Salt-based snacks with the labels in German: Mmmm, salt-based snacks.

Avruga cod roe: As disgusting as caviar (note the cheeky name. Avruga - say it fast, sounds like Beluga) but £100 cheaper.

Extra expensive extra virgin olive oil: Olive oil is overrated already. Extra virgin olive oil more so. For starters it's not even made out of spare virgins (though at this price you'd expect it to be), it's made out of green bean things. Secondly, how can you be an Extra Virgin? Even Jesus's mum was only a virgin. Good only for putting on view in a prominent place in the kitchen when you want to sell your house.

Ferrero Rocher type rip off chocolates: Only Italy could produce a pretentious chocolate and only a German supermarket could go one better by making their cloned version both prentious AND cheap.