It's festive gift guide time. O come, all ye frothers, joyful and indignant!

The hunt is on in London for the German hairy snail. OK. I have an idea.

- Lucy Mangan

Monday

Why don't we NOT search for anything called the German hairy snail? In fact, I have an even better idea: why don't we not search for any kind of hairy snail. Actually, I would go even further and suggest not searching for anything hairy at all, because hairy is second only to mucus in the list of the world's worst words. But I will settle for not searching for the thing that unassailably evokes the two in grotesque combination.

Except, it turns out, the German hairy snail (hereafter known as the GHS because, honestly, with the best will in the world, I simply CANNOT) is only hairy on its shell and, most crucially, is only the size of a fingernail. And it has apparently been here since at least Neolithic times but survives only in tiny patches along the Thames, which once connected to the Rhine. In Germany, do you see?

Also, there exists something called the Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland, which is supporting the search, and I didn't know the word conchological before. All these deeply pleasing pieces of information change everything and I am now heading for the mudbanks of the Thames with a will. The more you know, the less you fear. There's almost a lesson in that somewhere. Truly, even the hairiest molluscs have much to teach us.

Tuesday