They were clearly terrible for my teeth and general health since these days I have a mouth that has as much gold and silver in it as a display tray at Elizabeth Duke and I’m pretty short, pale, stumpy and as unfit as Rik Waller before his short stint on Celebrity Fit Club. Thanks, mum.

I suppose sweets are my guilty pleasure given that I have a constant secret stash of them at any time of any day. I have even been known to pretend they are “for the kids” when I’m buying a particularly large load of strawberry bootlaces, foam strawberries, chocolate mice and Tangfastics.

Tell us your fave sweets I hear you cry. Okay, if you insist, here are my top 3 sweets, in a very particular order:

• Giant strawberrys: they are giant, red and green and taste in no way like a strawberry but they are nicer than the biggest and best Sunday roast TV chef favourite Anthony Worral Thomson could ever conjure up. I usually buy these in tens (5 pence each) and chew on them over a double bill of a late 80s/early 90s US sitcom.

• Red rope liquorice: Garth from Wayne’s World inspired me on this one – he is a big fan of the red rope liquorice and even had a red liquorice vending machine thing installed in his car. This one is less juicy than the aforementioned giant strawberry. In fact, they are quite tough and if your teeth were not of a strong disposition I’d say be careful when gnawing on these. Taste wise they are a sort of cherry flavour and are incredibly moreish. Rather conveniently they sell them across the street from my house.

• Haribo fizzy cherries: these delights can be found in bags of Haribo Tangfastics and do genuinely taste like cherries, believe it or not. They seem to be most people’s favourite in the Tangfastics collection, which begs the question: why didn’t they give the cherries their own bag? They’re great if you pop them in your mouth, suck the sugary fizzy stuff and then let the jelly bit sort of disintegrate on your tongue. Delish.

Others that deserve a shout-out are: Jazzies, Gold Bears, coconut mushrooms, strawberry laces, cola cubes and foam shrimps.

Feel free to share your favourite crappy sweet top charts. I would genuinely be quite interested.

Now this may be controversial, but I Love Lily Allen. Not her music, or maybe not even her personality – I can’t really say having never met her. But I do love her general appearance. She is the exact epitome of a celebrity who I think is quite fit but not hot enough to be totally inaccessible. That’s not to say I think I could necessarily dampen a digit backstage at Lily Allen and Friends, but she has a definite tawdry edge. On top of that, I think she may embody the safe middle-class version of my mild fetish for sluts with lots of gold jewellery – like the girl who used to deliver papers on my street in Air Max 90s, a ton of gold, and a boob tube. But (I hope) without the chronic syphilis and gonorrhea that I am sure she had.

Mmmmm. I love small boobies. Yum. Thinking about them makes me so happy I feel like I have just watched It’s A Wonderful Life 12 times in a row while eating two tubs of Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice-cream. It’s a warm, dreamy feeling. And totally non-sexual. Well, maybe a bit sexual, actually.

The thing that’s great about little tits is that they are so perky and happy and pert. Like two little fellas eager to peer at the sun every morning. Hi guys! Yep, there you are! A tiny tit day is always a great day. Not like a big boob day, which is basically, by Newton’s Law of Gravity, always going to be a downer. Look at those big puffy lumps falling out of their hoist and heading down through Dumpsville for another day in Sag City. Ewwwww. No thanks. I’ll take Pinky and Perky here and stuff ‘em right in my mouth like beautiful fleshy pink doughnuts. I’d rather that than have my face smothered by big hulking airbags any day. Yep, I LOVE small tits.

No, silly, not those hallucinogens that university students experiment with after becoming bored with the inanity of smoking eighteen spliffs every day. I am talking about the mushrooms that you eat. There are so many different types to choose from and they’re all delicious. Button mushrooms, shiitake, oyster mushrooms. I don’t see why there isn’t a mushroom shop on every high street. I could easily imagine an independent chain called The Happy Mushroom. I mean, there are cheese shops everywhere and those places reek of putrefying dog sick.

I don’t think I have ever eaten a bad mushroom. They are the most consistently good food you will find. They also have a perfect texture and are so satisfying to bite into. Add to this, the fact that they are cheap and easy to cook, and you have a baby penis-shaped solution for world student poverty and malnutrition.

You can have mushrooms with pretty much every hot meal. I can’t think of any dish that wouldn’t be improved with a portion of mushrooms on the side. There is so much you can do with them. If you don’t like them plain, there are also lots of options. You can have breaded mushrooms, garlic mushrooms, breaded garlic mushrooms. The list is, erm, quite long. Even those weird vegetarian people can eat them without guilt. Honestly, what is there not to love?

My love of shitty magazines is what you would call a guilty pleasure. By shitty magazines, I mean the lower-end titles such as Closer, Reveal, Pick Me Up and Love It!. The ones that are around £1 or under.

I dearly love the random mix of celebrity insight, real-life scandal, fashion, and inane puzzles that fill their cheap glossy pages. My true soft spot is for the real-life stories from fruit and nut bars across the land desperate to share their tales of mortifying grossness and horror for £150.

A few of the best headlines that spring to mind are:

Like Mother Like Son. But People Think We’re Twins!
A Mother and son (he was a transvestite) who decided to have surgery to look like twins.

My Husband May Have a Vagina But He’s All Man
No explanation needed here, I don’t think.

I Gave My Hooves The Heave Ho
A story about a horse lover who had hooves made in place of his feet (but then decided to change them back to regular feet)

In addition to these magical stories, my favourite magazines also have columnists in the form of some of the nation’s best-loved stars. New magazine has mentally vacant housewives’ favourite Peter Andre, another title that has momentarily slipped my mind has swine-faced warbler Kerry Katona and Closer has kebab-scoffing Scouser bimbo millionairess Coleen Mcloughlin. The other columnists pale into pathetic insignificance once you see the gems Coleen has to offer. Her column is entitled Welcome to my World and she really does give us a sneaky peek into her unique universe every single week. She shares with us her tips on fashion, hair, beauty, health and anything else that pops into her little head at that particular moment.

Here I will share with you a few excerpts from her column that will cement why it is something I cherish so dearly.

“A new Italian restaurant opened in Liverpool last week so me and my family went there for dinner. I had garlic bread, lasagne and a side salad with a still water. It was really nice and I’ll definitely go back.”

“I’ve started going out running to try and keep fit. I’ll go out early in the mornings. I really don’t enjoy it to begin with as it’s so cold but after a little while the running will warm me up and then it’s okay.”

“I bought my mum and dad a new house. They’re happy about it but sad to be moving out of their old house.”

“Bird flu is scary. I had flu last week and was really ill. Bird flu would be bad. I am keeping away from pigeons in the street to be safe.”

“What with the sticky summer weather it tends to get really hot in our bedroom at night which really bothers Wayne and keeps him up so I decided to get a fan that I’ve placed next to our bed and it’s helped a lot. He’s been sleeping really well again.”

I don’t know what I can really add to these snippets, since their greatness is obvious. Why settle for soporific scaremongering shit from Polly Toynbee in The Guardian, when you can read all about Wayne Rooney’s unremarkable sleeping patterns?

I won’t say any more about why these magazines are such essential reading since you’re probably already edging out of your seat to make a little trip to the newsagents.

I guess the main thing about ALF is that there is pretty much nothing to hate about him. I mean, what could you really hate? He is an alien brightening up the lives of an otherwise really boring family. He is short with massive hands and feet. One of his palms is the shape of a love heart. He is a brown, hairy optimist (his catchphrase is “No problem”) with great dress sense and the funniest jokes. These are just a few of the reasons that at the age of 8 I fell for ALF’s furry, funny ways.

I remember the day ALF arrived at my house in his cardboard spaceship fresh from planet Melmac. What I have gradually come to realise is that he actually arrived in a cardboard spaceship carried in a plastic bag from Toy Bazar – the biggest and best toy shop in town, thanks very much (when I was 8 years old). From day one, ALF and I did everything together. Amongst many other things, we have been to the Tour de France, Blackpool Pleasure Beach and the Glasgow Garden Festival. The best of times.

Another reason I love ALF is because he’s strong. He’s a fighter. Over the years he has had to take some pretty cruel and unfair criticism over his larger-than-average nose, his portly physique and his, erm, unique looks. Some have gone as far as to describe him as ugly, gross or “cock nosed” (someone called him this just last week). But he’s a tough little guy and he simply takes these criticisms and eats them for breakfast.

As I type these words of love, ALF is sat by my side taking a peek at what I write and smiling modestly to himself.

Jellyfish are amazing. They lurch about, looking like your first 20 attempts at a poached egg; no eyes, no opposable thumb. But watch what humans (especially surfers) do when they come near – they smear their baggy three quarter length Billabong shorts and start pissing on one another (not so “grody” now, are we “bro”?). They’re also the closest thing we have to ghosts – graceful, otherworldly, and pretty scary. They even come encased in ectoplasm like Slimer from Ghostbusters!

I’ve never seen one in real life. Lots of people – mainly fat losers who spend half their benefit cheque each week on the National Lottery – say their life’s ambition is to swim with dolphins. The pinnacle of my life would be to wrap myself in sting-proof body sock and swim with a jelly fish the size of Moby-Dick. I’d stroke it and hug it and tickle it, swim up into its Rhopailum (that’s its mouth, plebs) and think about how much pain I’d be in if I was naked.

And therein lies the greatest beauty of these wonderful animals. You can never get too close. Look, admire, revere all you want. But don’t touch, or it’ll hurt like hell.