The classic holiday purchase is the pair of loon pants that makes perfect sense in a dusty alleyway in Delhi but looks instantly ludicrous when unpacked from your rucksack on returning to Daventry.
More unforgivable, however, are those mementoes from your time away that you knew were wrong from the moment you saw them – and yet you bought them anyway.
One colleague fondly remembers the his-and-her T-shirts – the first saying "The love" with an arrow, and the second reading "of my life" – found for sale in Shanghai. I suspect they won't be wearing these while walking hand-in-hand in their home town anytime soon.
Mosque alarm clocks are pretty tacky; worse is the pop-off bra that opens when you clap, just the thing you need when scouring Damascus for a culturally sensitive gift.
I'm more guilty than most of bringing home terrible tat for loved ones. My worst guilty pleasure holiday purchase was when I believed, regretfully, that my trip to St Petersburg would not be complete without a fridge magnet from the Kunstkamera, the museum of curiosities founded by Peter the Great, which depicted a dead baby in a jar.
Are tasteless souvenirs just harmless post-modernist fun or is something more corrosive at work, gnawing away at the souls – and wallets – of visitors and the visited?
Italy – famed for the marriage of creativity and commerce that has produced modern classics such as the cooking apron depicting the naked torso of Michelangelo and the underpants with the Leaning Tower of Pisa rising from the crotch – is this month hosting a summit to tackle the problem of holiday tat.
In Pisa, five stall holders have been fined €500 for offering for sale the Leaning Tower underwear and various mayors and governors of other Tuscan towns now want to sweep away "trash souvenirs".
What's the trashiest souvenir you've brought home? And is it a guilty pleasure or a genuine source of shame? You might like to check out travel writer Doug Lansky's Crap Souvenirs website for inspiration (warning: most of this collection is just plain wrong rather than ironic or kitsch). Then tell us about your favourite trashy trinkets or, better still, share your photos of them on our Naff Souvenirs flickr group.
