FOR ALL those of you currently spending this antepenultimate shopping day either banging your head against the mantelpiece or huddling in an unlit corner, gnawing a knuckle and mumbling, I bring tidings of comfort and joy.

Because this great newspaper, ever at the vanguard of humanitarian concern, has commissioned an astonishing new product: the all-purpose last-minute Yuletide present. Through a remarkable breakthrough in South Korean seasonal technology, we are able to offer, exclusive to our esteemed readership, the opportunity to solve all their gift problems at a stroke with our miracle Digital Aftershave Necktie Phoneslippers.

These handsome plaid loafers in non-stick dishwasherproof Seoulene, a direct spin-off of the fabled Korean space programme, are not just an example of head-turning footwear at its state-of-the-art-yet-economical best: the left slipper has been microcircuited and digitised to play up to 700 electronic games, take and send calls and text, and download more than 5,000 old makeover programmes through the handy full-colour screen built into its instep and activated by the big toe; while the right slipper contains nearly two pints (1.3 litres) of Old Phoo Yong Aftershave in its virtually undetectable built-up heel (Caution: a slight limp is unavoidable. Times Newspapers plc and its heirs and assigns are not responsible for any accidents or social embarrassment deriving therefrom.) A slim sub-trouser tube connects with the architect-designed fashionable creaseproof necktie, so that when the heel is brought down sharply, the face is sprayed fragrantly through the knot.

These wondrous items are in every sense a gift at £159.95 a pair, plus £3.99 delivery. Should you prefer to call personally at the back door of No 1 Pennington Street, London, E98 ITA (please press the bell marked Rupert), you will also receive an elegant calculator-scarf with advocaat-scented bathcube woggle, absolutely free!!!

• AS YOU know, the Times Legal Department is always happy to deal with readers’ queries, but since it is currently involved in wording the small print on our Digital Aftershave Necktie Phoneslippers guarantee, I have been asked to help out with this urgent plea:

  Dear Lawyers, About to cook my Christmas pies, I opened a jar of mincemeat purchased at a local shop and found a mouse inside it. What should I do?
  
  It is interesting that you do not say “I opened a jar of mincemeat and found to my horror a mouse inside it.” That is the form we in the legal department strongly recommend. If it was not to your horror, what was it to? If, for example, it was to your delight, then I am ethically bound to advise you that there is little we can do to screw the shop for every penny.

  Indeed, it could well be in your interest to write a thank-you note to the shop enclosing a cheque to protect yourself against any claim on the shop’s part for its mouse back.

  If, though, it was to your surprise, then there may well be a bob or two in it, depending on the extent of your surprise; far be it from me to put ideas into your head, but if the surprise was such that you fell back against a priceless Ming vase, which, as it shattered, caused your prize chihuahua to suffer a fatal heart attack, and, as the result, your husband to run off with the big woman up the road, compensation could be satisfyingly considerable. If, however, you merely cried: “Stone me, a mouse!” I see no material advantage in your going to court.

  Nor do you say whether the mouse was dead. If it left the shop alive and popped its clogs while in your charge, you could well find yourself facing an action for cruelty and prohibited for life from keeping another mouse.

  Were this the case, we would not touch you with what we in the legal profession call a bargepole. Why not write us another letter along the lines of: “I recently opened a jar of mincemeat purchased at a local shop and to my inexpressible horror found a dead mouse inside it, since when I have had no sleep, suffered fainting fits, lost all sexual interest, and had my Christmas totally buggered up. May I beg you to take these ratbags to the cleaners, no expense spared, not just for me, but for suffering humanity everywhere?”

  The Alan Coren Omnibus has just been published by Robson Books at £9.99