SpendIt ShoppingFashionTechnology Heart-shaped boxes Finding the right gift for your Valentine is a fraught, potentially dangerous experience. Fortunately, The List’s own shopping agony aunt Kirstin Innes is here to help you cut through all the heart-shaped dross and find personalised presents
3 Your loved one is either a committed foodie, or a real sensualist Go for the full aphrodisiac experience. Loch Fyne will deliver freshly caught oysters directly to your door: prices start at £14.95 for a simple wooden pannier containing a dozen, but they do all sorts of packages, including a deluxe delivery of oysters and champagne. If they’ve never quite got accustomed to the taste of cold mollusc on their throat (shame), we suggest Edinburgh’s Coco of Bruntsfield’s Aphrodisiac Collection: each specially designed chocolate contains a different ingredient with aphrodisiac properties, and they come in sexy Art Nouveau-inspired packaging. Boxes start at £10.50. Loch Fyne Oysters, www.lochfyne.com; Coco of Bruntsfield, Bruntsfield Place, Edinburgh, 0131 228 4526. www.cocochocolate.co.uk 3
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1 Your loved one is a cynical, cerebral hipster with a subscription to McSweeney’s and a postgraduate degree in contemporary literature Get them My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead, a collection of dark, slightly twisted love stories from throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, edited by Jeffrey Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides, Middlesex). It’s not some edgy, glib kind of publication, though: as well as being an utterly beautiful book to look at, the featured writers include Chekhov, Nabokov, Alice Munro and Lorrie Moore, and all profits go to funding free youth writing projects in Chicago. RRP £9.99. Order it from Hyndland Bookshop, Hyndland Road, Glasgow, 0141 334 5522. 2
2 Your loved one’s interests include stand up comedy, boozing and flashing his bum; but he’s got a heart of gold and he’s always the
first to leap into a bath-full of baked beans for charity
Get him Bawbags. Totally. A bag, for his
baws. We love everything about this ace, Scottish-run underwear company,
from their totally crazy designs (they do Smell-Proof Socks as well) to their online
blog, written in Scots, to the fact that a percentage of every Bawbag purchased goes
to help the fight against testicular cancer and they include info on how to check your baws. We
reckon your beloved will see the funny side of this skin
tight pink leopard print pair, too.
Bawbag Boxers, £9.95, available at Focus, www.focuspocus.co.uk, Argyle St, Glasgow, 0141 248 2446; Canongate, Edinburgh, 0131 629 9196;
or online at www.bawbags.com
14 THE LIST 4–18 Feb 2010