Toilet Paper in the Fridge? 👀👀👀

The 'Bog roll in the Electrolux' solution probably stems from toilet paper's absorbency. This isn't a new idea but a resurgent one. Boffins have known about toilet paper's ability to soak up moisture since we consigned the last rolls of IZAL Medicated Toilet Tissue to the lavatory pan of water closet history in 2010.

Older readers may recall this shiny paper's ability to glide between the crevasse of the buttocks like a cracked egg across a Teflon frying pan. Does parking a toilet roll above the salad drawer of your fridge really eradicate smells? Opinions differ.

Crumpled newspaper and charcoal

Stuffing a bog roll in your fridge is at least a cheap option for maintaining a fresh fridge. Another inexpensive remedy for refrigerator hum is to stuff it full of freshly crushed charcoal and crumpled newspaper every day for a week. The effectiveness of lumping carbonised wood and screwed-up copies of the Evening Standard between the salad veg and the butter sounds messy. Does it work? Who knows?

Activated charcoal

Less messy is the use of activated charcoal to trap bad smells. It's widely available in various formats and easy to get. Beware, though, that some odours resist all attempts at eradication. My Uncle Davie's socks are a case in point. His hosiery was permanently haunted with guffs so toxic that the MOD tried to weaponise them at Porton Down in the sixties.

Alternative fridge odour busters

For smells that are not invincible we have to leave the bargain basement. So, where else can we turn for fresh air when we reach for the cheese? We'll have to move up market, starting with black cumin seed oil.

Black cumin seed oil

This exotic-sounding oil acts as a deodorant, masking odours — or so they say. Apparently, you mix it with hand soap and smear it all over the plastic bits in your fridge, washing it off after a couple of hours. And voila, your fridge no longer smells like a damp goat.

UV light purifier

The damp goat and seed oil remedy isn't for everybody, though. So, for those who lean toward high-tech solutions, there are refrigerators with ultra-violet beams built in, designed to zap foul odour-producing bacteria should they dare stick their heads above the parapet.

On a cautionary note, there is a remote chance that opening the door of a UV-supported fridge at the wrong angle may cause a problem. But only if one of these beams ricochets off your shaving mirror, out the kitchen window and skyward, alerting a hostile extraterrestrial species to our whereabouts. As these xenomorphs may be the type for whom planetary extinction is a recreational pursuit. But then we risk our lives every time we cross the road.

The only way to ensure your fridge is 100 % germ-free is to cart it down to your local Large Hadron Collider where you should accelerate it at the speed of light into a head-on collision with a blacksmith's anvil. Doing so would guarantee the instant annihilation all odour particles. Of course, you'd annihilate your fridge, too, but you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, as they say.