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Along with ring tones, personalised number plates and mechanically recovered meat, fridge magnets are among the most pointless inventions of the 20th century – and although their popularity has diminished somewhat in recent years, UK sales still exceeded 4 million in 2015.
Reassuringly, less than 3,000 of these were bought by pensioners, with almost all given as gifts in return for presents such as ornamental door wedges, musical Frisbees and economy size packs of mechanically recovered meat.
Many UK towns and cities now hold an annual fridge magnet amnesty and in 2013, more than 73,000 were handed in by residents of Ventnor, where the local mental health trust became the first in the country to officially recognise collecting fridge magnets as a potentially chronic psychological condition.
Collectors of fridge magnets are known as Smegheads.