Last Christmas I was doing what I like to call some last-minute panic shopping; for those of you wondering what this phrase means, it’s when you procrastinate on your shopping because you’re busy/exhausted/have no idea what to buy anyone and then realise that you have to get everything together at the eleventh hour.

Well, my particular brand of panic shopping means that I end up wildly clearing shop shelves like a woman possessed (and not of the Christmas spirit variety).

It was on one of these particular jaunts that I found myself standing in front of a cashier carrying a mound of scarves, jumpers, hats and gloves which could easily have clothed an entire Alaskan village.

But alas, there was no cashier to remove the alarm tags off my purchases because the one in front of me was unable to do so, thanks to what looked like an entire 3D Christmas village perched upon her talons.

If it is indeed uniqueness you are after, keep your nails short and paint them a nice nude

So I spent the next 15 minutes gawking at the party taking place on her nails while she loudly complained about the fact that she had just had them done and that she wasn’t going to ruin them on the behalf of little old me.

Of course, many of you will think that this was just an isolated incident, yet every day, new photos of such monstrous disasters hit the web.

I do not know how no one has twigged onto this national obsession which has women on the breadline contributing a substantial amount of their wages (or benefits) to get nails which look like Hansel and Gretel’s iced gingerbread house.

Now I know that many might feel inclined to argue that taste is subjective, but apart from the fact that you should be able to tell that purple, pink, blue and gold should not all be on the same hand at once (unless you’re a clown at a children’s party), going around with nails that actually impede you from leading a normal life or managing to do your job should be indication enough for you to put down the glue and back away from sticking a Christmas tree (or a picture of your village’s patron saint just in time for festa) to your ring finger.

If it is indeed uniqueness you are after, keep your nails short and paint them a nice nude. I guarantee that they will look different from everyone else’s (and you might even manage to blow your nose without injuring yourself).