Retail Randoms

TAT-INUM JUBILEE

With just over a week until the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, patriotic punters are spoiled for choice when it comes to commemorative tat, with products at every price point.

Samsung’s Platinum Jubilee Fridge Freezer can be yours for only £999, for example. You’d think it would’ve come in red, white and blue at that price.

Amazingly, the $75 Barbie Signature Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Doll has already sold out, despite it looking more like Helen Mirren than the real deal, while the £12.99 Lego mini figure impressively replicates our monarch’s trademark helmet hair.

As does Aldi’s The Queen Kevin the Carrot, which sees the discounter’s much-put-upon vegetable don some lippy and a Chairman Maostyle outfit to grace shelves at £3.99. And if you’re planning a party, look no further than Amazon’s bunting – which showcases Her Majesty’s impressive hat collection.

It should be right up your street. Be warned though, it just won’t be very far up your street, costing £12.99 for a miserly three metres.

RUBBERNECKERS

We received an email from Jane from China Tianjin Recare Co the other day.

This, it must be said, was an unsolicited communication from the company, which has apparently been “specifically and reliably” manufacturing latex condoms for more than 25 years.

Now, you wouldn’t think there was a great deal of new product development going on in the world of barrier contraception, but Jane was reaching out to tell us about Recare’s latest innovation: wine condoms. To clarify, that’s not wine-flavoured condoms but condoms for wine.

The patented johnnies, which the company says are both “funny and practical,” are deployed as one imagines over the necks of opened bottles and perform the same anti-oxidative function as a traditional wine stopper, albeit in a slightly more snigger-inducing fashion.