Home front: Fiona Gibson

HAVE you heard of baby-wipe warmers? Unbelievably, such gizmos exist, presumably to prevent children from requiring therapy in future years. ("My mum used ... choke ... really cold wipes.") One such model claims to be "the ONLY wipes warmer that will not brown or dry out wipes", which implies that there is a vast selection out there, some of which brown the wipes, which sounds as if they might double up as a toaster.

It's always pleasing to discover that an appliance has another function. In his youth, J used a Corby trouser press to heat up a pizza. However, in a new book, Parenting, Inc, author Pamela Paul reasons that the vast majority of baby-related products are totally unnecessary, and that we are investing in our children "as if they are little businesses".

J and I fell for numerous baby-related buys. We'd heard that newborn babies "needed" to nap on sheepskin rugs, and dutifully bought our twins one each. We shelled out for activity arches - wobbly constructions with lots of dangly bits which your baby is meant to swipe and gurgle at delightedly. Ours preferred whacking saucepans with wooden spoons. I'd always suspected that the urge to acquire non-essential goods reaches fever pitch when you produce a child - yet one peep at the Lakeland website proves that it's simply a side effect of growing up.

What's on offer here makes you suspect that Lakeland isn't really a store offering zillions of "kitchen solutions" but a huge spoof - and you're the only one who's not getting it. Take the blurb about their Bagel Cutter Guide. "We all love a nice bagel," it reads, "but it can be tricky to cut them evenly and safely." Well, it might possibly pose a challenge if it's 3.30am and you've just staggered in from a party. Nocturnal food preparation is risky: a friend of mine nearly burnt down his flat when he napped while his sausages were sizzling under the grill. Yet we're talking an innocent bagel. Surely they never hurt anybody. "Angela", a Lakeland reviewer, disagrees: "I no longer have oddly shaped bagels," she enthuses.

The fact that consumers post reviews on the website convinces me that we've pinged into Viz territory. (Remember Viz's top tips? I can still remember my favourite: "Instead of spending money on an address book, get your phone directory and cross out all the people you don't know.") "It tends to mash the fruit," complains Kirstine of Lakeland's Flexicado, which isn't some torturous device to tone the abs but "a flexible solution to getting the most out of any sized avocado". I know times are tough, with soaring food prices, but have we reached such a pitiful state that we're flung into high anxiety over a smear of avocado?

Admittedly, some of Lakeland's products might be faintly useful. At a stretch, I can almost imagine using a cherry stoner or a veggie wedger if burglars had stolen all our knives. I'm not so sure about the Banana Guard, though, which is basically a plastic banana-shaped box in which to, um, store your banana. "Battered bananas will become a thing of the past!" gushes the blurb. What they don't mention is that extracting a Banana Guard from a lunchbox would guarantee ridicule from colleagues - and probably result in a child refusing to eat the darn fruit ever again.

Maybe I'm missing a trick, and millions of shoppers are desperate to avoid wonky bagels/bruised bananas/wasted avocado. All it would take is a celeb-chef endorsement and we'd witness the Delia/Jamie effect. However, the one gadget we "need" does not appear to exist. My sons have embraced the craze of creating spurty fountains by stuffing Mentos mints into bottles of Diet Coke. Although the examples on YouTube are impressive - with geysers reaching up to 30 feet - our own attempts have been lacklustre. "What we need," reckons one of my sons, "is something to fit onto the bottle that you pull off. A kind of mint releaser." Mr Lakeland, we're depending on you.