EVERY year it’s the same. Some company takes it upon themselves to try and find out how much we spend on useless gadgets. And every year the answers are always ‘thousands’, and ‘fondue sets’.

According to the latest survey 56 per cent of fondue set owners have only used their apparatus once, or – horrors – never.

This information is perennially regarded as comment and survey-worthy when really, it’s about as interesting as listening to your dad describe the best route to Basingstoke.

Is there a law against accidentally squandering £41.50 – the average price of a fondue set, in case you weren’t wondering? Will the nation fall apart because we now know that four-in-ten of us buy a Soda Stream and then – gasp! – never use the thing? The answer, of course, is no.

But who are these reckless acquirers of Soda Streams and fondue sets? Because I’ve never met them. I don’t have one mate with a Soda Stream or, come to think of it, a fondue set. I don’t own a melon-baller (another gadget we’re all urged to get guilty about buying) or an ice-cream maker. And nor, am I aware, does anyone else.

I can only assume that the people who conduct these surveys keep returning to the same old people for the answers because these are not the gadgets cluttering up the garages/spare bedrooms/garden sheds and kitchen cupboards of anyone I know.

Me and my mates are bedevilled by exercise bikes, rowing machines, steam cleaning devices, patio washers, curling tongs, foot-spas, pet-hair remover mitts, Dust-Busters, battery chargers, mobile phone chargers (because the men who run these companies have never thought of inventing a universal version, have they?).

A new and increasingly horrible trend is in so-called ‘green’ gadgets. I went through a phase of buying these back in the day before I realised that a) they don’t work and b) global warning was a fiendish plot constructed by Gordon Brown and Tony Blair to make us pay more taxes.

Now I am stuck with a solar-powered mobile-phone charger which, going on past performance, would require the thing to actually be affixed to the sun to work; a radiator fan designed to waft warm air round the room, two incredibly naff-looking solar-powered garden lights, and some magnets which, if they ever do get attached to our central heating system, will allegedly remove the gargantuan chalk deposits that are apparently clogging up all the pipes.

And then there are the gadgets that your other half will never let you ditch, like the Rolf Harris Stylophone which he insists never belonged to him but mysteriously, can’t bear to get rid of; the 1930s hand-held Hoover (if my marriage ever ends it will be because of his insistence on retaining this vile and useless object), every radio, tape-deck, boom box and speaker he ever bought because ‘someone will want it’ one day. Yes, but only if they’ve been recently sectioned. And naturally there is all the gardening, automotive and kitchen stuff lurking round every corner.

And even this seems rather pathetic when you consider some of the REALLY useless gadgets that people have admitted to buying, such as the Japanese USB bra warmer (!) the fake bubble-wrap machine and the cup-cake corer that is still selling in the USA.

The funny thing about all this is that when I look around our gaff at the gadgets I really do use, I feel gratitude of pathetic proportions for their usefulness and the time they save me.

I love my Dyson vacuum cleaner and the stylish Dualit toaster with its lovely ticking timer. I adore my efficient iMac and my giant, flat-screen telly which makes Johnny Depp appear lifesize, and I am getting inordinately fond of my new, revolving hairdryer brush.

More than anything, more than is normal, even, I worship my American washing machine which takes twice the normal amount of clothing and completes it in less than 20 minutes.

I love the way you can lift the lid up and pop in the stray sock you dropped on the stairs and the way you can take all the washing out the minute it stops spinning, while European varieties remain locked for ten infuriating minutes on the grounds of health and safety.

It wasn’t cheap to buy. And it sounds like an especially bad teen rock band trying to break out of the laundry. But it does what every good gadget should – makes our life easier and soaks up less time. So we can get on with enjoying ourselves.