WE have a magnetic soap holder. The soap has a metal insert, so it sticks to the magnetic holder.

My daughter’s friend, when told it was a magnetic soap holder, said: “Where do you get the magnetic soap from?”

If there was such a thing I’m sure the gullibilensia* would buy it, especially if told it cured liver spots.

There’s a lot of quack medicine magnetic cures about even today.

The only old magnetic device I believe in is ‘The Coffee Magnet’ – it had a proper working function.

In times past the grinders were so poor they left iron filings in the ground coffee.

The magnet got them out. Iron fillings combined with the acid in your stomach can be explosive.

I wonder how many unloved husbands died for lack of a coffee magnet. This has also made me suspicious of iron pills.

I’ve got various magnetic devices, including a magnetic rolling pin.

With my magnetic electric shocking machines I can cure anything including apparent death from drowning.

I used to use it at school. I’d get the class to form a circle holding hands the two at the end of the line held the shocking terminals.

I then told the class we were going to do a picture called Fright and that they had to study the face of the pupil opposite for inspiration.

I then turned on the machine. I shouted over the screams: “The first to let go is clean up monitor.”

I experienced the device myself when I was fast asleep in my armchair. Dave Cullen put the terminals down my socks.

I woke abruptly not knowing who I was. It was a terrible way to be woken but not as bad as waking confused, drowning and spluttering after my little son Dick poured a cup of cold cocoa down my nostrils because my mouth was shut.

I later had my revenge when I told him the mustard was kipper yoghurt. He hasn’t eaten mustard since.

In Edwardian and Victorian times, magnetic cures were all the rage. They even had magnetic corsets.

Despite a long history of magnetic cures, I didn’t believe a word of it. Imagine my surprise when the wife of the ‘Sage of Cold Aga Farm’ recommended magnetic knee wraps for my wife Elizabeth’s painful knee joints.

I pointed out to her at the time that magnets that are attracted to each other could cause her to be knock-kneed.

Worse would be if they repelled. She’d end up bow-legged like the old ladies in the past with rickets, of whom it was often affectionately said: “Couldn’t stop a pig in a passage.’’

To my amazement, she insists they work. Not only are her knees better, they’ve helped the pain in her hips.

As to side effects, she’s not gone knock-kneed or bow-legged, but when wearing them she’s attracted to the fridge and appears to want to go north.

I understand that the only partial relief you get from magnets is if you buy the cheapest – it’s a relief on your wallet.

On April 1, a story went round that BMW were fitting a magnetic device in their cars that attracted it to the car in front, thus pulling it along and saving fuel.

I actually believe this story, because even my little scooter seems to attract cars right up my rear end.

Quack medicine men love to use pseudo science to give their treatments an appearance of validity.

Chlorophyll was said to prevent decay and bad odours. So, we got chlorophyll socks and chlorophyll tooth paste.

Some wit wrote this poem debunking the idea: “That stinking goat on yonder hill, Has dined all day on chlorophyll.”

* Gullibilensia. Gullible people.