To celebrate some exam success this week, I was whisked off to the Apple store to purchase some Beats goodies - bluetooth in-ear headphones, and their mini portable speaker, the Beats Pill. Both are a lot of fun, however it was an impromptu off-the-shelf purchase that has turned out to be the real revelation. I’m always keen on gadgets that make photography more accessible. In this day and age of leaving the house with powerful photographic equipment tucked in your pocket, adding peripherals can make things even better.

I go through earphones at a rate of knots. Sometimes they lose the sound in one ear, occasionally I leave them places, often one end of the cable breaks and becomes unusable. Considering the amount I use them, I’m okay with that really. They have become more of a consumable than anything else. I’ve tried expensive ones, I’ve tried cheap ones, and in the end, I just go with whatever I can find.

Last week, I talked about recipes I am tempted to make, and today I’ve got more kitchen related stuff. I managed to have a quick browse through a Lakeland catalogue this week, and it was full of kitchen related gadgets. A few of them were pretty impressive, so I’ve picked five that I would buy if I was in the mood to sort my kitchen out. Lakeland Scrudle - £2.99 The name leaves a lot to be desired, but the description that it helps emptying casserole dishes and getting the last servings out of a pan resonated with me.

I’ve always been an iPod Nano person. I had the first gen Nano, a long, blocky, black thing, with a small and grainy screen, and enormous body. I skipped the second generation in preference for the third, although I was initially wary of the squat little thing. From a taller, more elegant solution, the third gen was a bit of a handful. It’s no surprise to me that they returned to the elongated shape for version four.

I’ve been hearing about the Microsoft Courier but not really been paying attention. It first came to my attention as a competitor to the still-fictional-at-the-moment Apple tablet, but from what I’ve read, it’s not meant to be a tablet computer, it’s something different. I recently saw a video of the potential uses for the Courier and was blown away. There are also pictures and more info here. It looks really cool, although I am a bit confused by the pen.

More than a year ago, I blogged about the cute and squishable Chumby, an internet gadget that seemed to just be a widget display showing you things like the weather, email and suchlike. I never bought one because at first it wasn’t available in the UK, then the option to ship it internationally became available but the gadget was just that little bit too expensive. Now they have come out with the Chumby One, which is the next generation of Chumby.

If you work in an office it can be quite a grind, but there are loads of toys and gadgets out there to help the day go a little bit faster. Here are some of my favourite ones at the moment. The Desktop Henry Hoover is an ideal gadget because not only is it cute and a talking point, but it also cleans your desk! It takes a couple of batteries, and apparently the suction has been greatly improved from when it was first released.

I seem to be using Facebook less and less, but there are sometimes things that make me want to dive back into the blue and white world. My Desk Friend is one of those things. The little robot connects to your profile and can let you know when you have messages, when your friends log in, and when you’ve been poked. It also works for other generic services, such as letting you know when you have an email, but it seems to be designed around Facebook.