Of course this is nonsense, but I just wanted to highlight that for most of us a hot water bottle is an aesthetically-challenged object. I can’t even remember the last time that I actually bought one. it would have probably been a last minute Christmas present for an elderly relative.

We seem, as a nation, to still be inextricably linked to them. It was George Mikes, a British author of Hungarian descent, who once poked fun at us as a nation. In his hilarious book ‘How to be an Alien’ he remarks “Continental people have sex lives, the English have hot water bottles’. In a way, there may have been truth in the joke, especially thinking back to when the designs were dour and bland. A typical continental person’s view of the English and sex is probably reflected in these words.

But wait a minute! Many things have changed since then. Could it be possible that these things have become ’sexy’? I found this site the other day that stocks styles and shapes that are quite different. If ever I was looking for something slightly quirky or different that couldn’t be found in the high street, this site would be the first place to look. They have everything here, from buddha statues to retro telephones, and most things in between!

If you are primarily interested in hot water bottles, my favourites are those with a cushion shape, like the ‘Giraffe cushion’. All of my favourites looked extremely comfortable and probably had therapeutic values, particularly for suffers of neck and lower back pain. For the environmentally conscious, they are also manufactured from recyclable material and are guaranteed not to fade.