The Kitsch Korner - collecting real tat in proper style

In the living room of our flat, we have a Kitsch Corner. Or, perhaps more appropriately, a Kitsch Korner TM. It sits innocently on top of some built-in, waist-height bookcases.

So when I read a recent hub about American kitsch and novelty items, I felt driven - driven, I tell you - to sharing the contents of our own collection.

This is no casual pile of junk, oh no. It's a serious and dedicated collection of the best kitsch collectables out there....

This is a serious business, and the criteria for inclusion in the Kitsch Korner TM are tough.

Not any old tat makes it into the collection, the rules Must Be Followed.

After debate and consultation, these are the Rules:

• It must have that je ne sais qua kitsch-ness, the basics of a collectable piece. Impossible to define, but I know it when I see it;

• It must be cheap. Expensive kitsch is less funny;

• It must be not easily available (we don't want everyone to have one, this is a classy collection);

• It must either be function-free, or significantly less useful than a similar item which is less naff.

One of my favourite items is a candle I was given when I was about 15 by a friend.

It is a Lenin bust black candle with a wick at the top. It seems to be made of pretty cheap wax, and therefore qualifies as a low quality item.

I doubt it would be very functional as a candle, because its bizarre shape means it couldn’t burn in any useful candle like way.

It also just has that certain randomness which is essential for inclusion in the corner.

One of my boyfriend’s favourites is the mosque alarm clock.

His Dad came across this in a shop in Birmingham when looking for something else, and recognised it straightaway as a pearl among its kind.

It is made of pretty cheap white plastic, with obvious seams along where the mould edges were.

When the alarm clock goes off, green lights flash at slightly random places around the mosque, and there is a tinny, screeching version of the Muslim call to prayer.

It is appropriately useless, because it does not keep time very reliably.

The sine qua non of an alarm clock is reliability, in my opinion, and this failure therefore makes this an almost perfect item.

The plastic Taj Mahal is the item that really started our kitsch corner. My other half acquired it when he was in India in his gap year between school and university.

He spent 6 months teaching English in a Tibetan Monastery in Darjeeling, and travelled in India as well.

He was delighted to find, as a souvenir in Delhi, a plastic, rather badly made, Taj Mahal. It was being sold as marble object, but was so clearly plastic with a lump of stone in the base that it delighted him.

One of the turrets is a bit wonky, the paint supposed to represent the jewels is inaccurately applied and cheap, and the whole thing just screams kitsch.

A proud acquisition from a holiday in Portugal is a hologram of Christ on the cross.

It’s about the size of an A4 piece of paper, and when looked at from one angle Christ is cheerfully standing on a hilltop in the Galilee, and from another angle is crucified on the cross complete with a crown of thorns.

As a particularly nice touch, there is a sticker on the back which says in both Portuguese and English that the item was made in China.

I greatly enjoy the thought of a load of Chinese workers in a factory in the middle of nowhere in China manufacturing these things, and wondering what on earth the whole item is about.

A friend of ours who is well aware of our collection brought this particular item back from an American holiday with her family.

It is a choice item, and has been awarded a place of honour. It is utterly useless, irredeemably naff, and just absolutely perfect.

Of course there are some items which never made it into our collection. A lot of these triggered some fierce debate as to whether or not they met the rules.

On a visit to Jerusalem’s old city, my Mother and I were particularly taken with a tile which said “Shalom Y’all”. We thought it was so naff as to be an immensely desirable piece for our collection.

My other half, resisted strenuously on the basis that although naff beyond all belief, it was perfectly functional. If you were to stick it onto the wall in the bathroom, he argued, it would be perfectly functional as a tile to keep the wall dry.

On this basis he was adamant that it couldn’t be allowed into the collection. He was so adamant that my Mother and I had to give in, in the end.

Our collection also contains:

•  A Mao mat, which is too flakey to be much use at the computer;
• A cigarette lighter which leaks lighter fluid, but plays "The East is Red" when you open it;
• A mini toy piano in violent shades of orange and pink.