What is it with food people, the ones who decide that it’s a good idea to lace food with booze, for instance? It sells is the answer.

In a moment of ‘idea spasm’ when shopping for ‘someone difficult’, some shoppers think that buying a jar of overpriced marmalade that has brandy or whisky added is a jolly good idea. When aforementioned marmalade is unsullied by alcohol, it tastes good; but laced with booze, it tastes odd.

Once the idea gets a grip, there’s an outbreak of buying additive-added foodstuffs. Double cream is probably bad for the waistline, but with added brandy, it just tastes of profiteering.

Some of this additive-prone food tastes exactly the same as before the additive, so the only added thing might be the new label design with ‘Now with added whatever’ and the ‘whatever’ has had zero effect, apart from on the bottom line.

We are in that period of food madness, followed by being told to lose weight when it’s the coldest, dampest, most miserable time of the year. Porridge seems to be the answer to this, you can eat barrow loads of the steaming stuff without gaining the pounds, but beware of what you put on it to make it taste okay, and make sure you are wearing the hair shirt.

“But what about that Industrial Christmas cake at the back of the cupboard, can’t I have a slice of that?”

“No, I’ve put it out for the birds”

I have visions of these poor, delicate feathered creatures ingesting parts of this brick of dried fruit joined together with a cement of eggy stodge, taking off from the bird table and nosediving into the ground beak-first into the snow. Forming a ring of crashed fliers around it, tail feathers waving desolately in the blizzard. A sort of bird tail feather Stonehenge, a monument to the Christmas cake.

Before we get to that, look out for the male shopper. In an era when online shopping has become the norm, the pre-Christmas male Shopper with a blank stare is becoming less common; he now reserves it for the computer or phone. In days of yore ( now there’s a phrase ), he would totter from shop to shop with a crumpled handwritten list of people he should be buying for with notes of possible buying solutions, none of which could be found.

This problem is now alleviated by Mr Google, who will point him to a Chinese website that can supply him easily from several thousand miles away. As for himself, he’d be happy with an additive-free jar of marmalade.