1. Bontempi DrumKit (£39.99): This electronic drum kit makes any child and overnight virtuoso as light and sound impulses guide the abrasive accompaniment. Drums light up telling the child when to strike (hard) and there are 40 pre recorded songs to accompany, guaranteeing that it will be weeks before the child gets sick of it (and minutes before the parents decamp to the garden shed).

2. Bontempi Electric Piano (£49.95) has 36 basic sound styles and the kind of rhythm bank that the lounge lizards of the 1970s had to hock their gold medallions for. Microchips bring the thrill of Caribbean, disco, hard rock, merengue and salsa straight into your front room at a price so cheap it's laughable.

3. DSI Fire Engine (£49.99) with remote control, a ladder that goes up and down and a repertoire of sounds, notably "bing bing bing bing bing bing bing". It runs forever on two AA batteries that never wear out because a tiny microchip does all

4. Tonka Smokin' Semi (£29.95) has noisy engine, noisy wheels, produces real smoke and features a genuine Brooklyn, New York Truckie voice that shouts "Get outta my way!" The horn screeches obnoxiously and a voice shouts "Drive it hard!"

5. American Frontier Repeater Rifle (£12.99) has a shotgun sound followed by an echo from the canyon straight out of old Westerns that will pierce your brain (and the neighbours').