Gift shop despatches

Apparently there are some people in the world whose idea of a good day out does not include either a gift shop, or a cup of tea and a nutritionally void item of baking. To those people, I say nothing because I have nothing to say to them.

Although I could perhaps wrestle my antipathy to the floor for long enough to say:

You would probably go to Kew Gardens with your friends – if you had any, which, like, you totally don't – and you would stride through the shop in your ugly shoes, with your overrated sense of purpose, on your way to the toilet, without a sideways glance and you would completely miss the Never-Ending Wall Of Technicolor Confectionary.

You are the kind of person who thinks there are two kinds of jam in the world: red jam and marmalade. You would probably look at this jar of High Dumpsie Dearie, which I have learnt is a traditional recipe for Plum, Pear & Apple Jam, and think, 'Why don't they just call it Plum, Pear & Apple Jam?'

You are probably not even excited by salt and pepper shakers – or a 'cruet set' as people who write copy for mail-order catalogues are wont to call them – in the shape of guinea pigs.

Your heart is made of sawdust and steel – not silk and steel, that would make you Five Star – and nuts and bolts done up too tightly. If we were at school, you would probably borrow my felt-tip pens without asking, and press too hard, and then not put the tops back on properly. You have to push them on until they click, you savage.