I bought these when we went to the Lake District and went in Lakeland. At the time, I thought I’d get around to a photo of them at some stage and as I’ve seen them quite a lot on TV recently I thought today would be as good a day as any.

They’re supposed to be environmentally friendly fabric softeners for the tumble drier. All of which I am concerned about. If it’s true that they are environmentally friendly then I am the first to applaud that – and that’s actually why I bought them on a whim but now I’m not so sure.

How does the manufacture of the plastic compare with the manufacturing process of the sheets we used to use that the makers of these things claim are so bad for the environment? I’m assuming that they’re sort of like a piggy bank – where you trade off putting some in and taking some out then end up in credit but I have really bought them on the recommendation of the manufacturer and well, they would say that wouldn’t they?

Strangely though, these important eco messages aren’t the ones that are really occupying my grey matter, it’s the actual design of the agitating balls themselves. My questions are:

· Is one blue (ish) and the other pink because they’re supposed to represent boys and girls?
· Is the pink one soft and rounded to represent soft girlie bits?
· Are they designed to ‘go together’ in this way and look somehow sexual?

Is there some genuine manufacturing or functioning reason for all of this?

If the answer to these questions is ‘Yes’ then can you imagine what fun it’d be to work on the design team with a bunch of folks who spend their days thinking of phallic symbolism to build into their products.

If the answer is ‘No’ then I am obviously the one with the warped and devious mind that reads innuendo into everything.

So, is it yes, or is it no? I don’t know and I’m not sure whether I’m willing to question my own thought processes deeply enough to find out. The answer might be scary!

Last year, I was also seeing things that may or may not have been there.