A friend of mine is a hardened rug addict. From flat weave to hooked, through to Persian and semi synthetic, she can’t get enough of the multi-coloured floor coverings. Despite it often being said that I could use one as head apparel, I can’t compete with her collection, which has earned her a reputation as the local loomatic.

Currently I collect Star Wars figures. During a par for the course 1970s childhood, I inadvisably ripped the back off the Yak Face and Darth Vader packets in Hastings' Woollies in a fit of fevered excitement. Financial foresight is not the greatest gift a child possesses, but, in hindsight, I wish my parents had been sadistically Victorian in their parentage and banished the unopened playthings to the shed for me until the new millennium.

Nowadays I can afford the 4ft tall Bobba Fett and the equally as wide Jabba. Such purchases afford me an opportunity to admire the beauty of the moulded plastic playthings whilst leaving them safely cable tied next to the porcelain commode in the attic.

A collection is an obsession or an illness, yet thankfully I have always stopped short of being sectioned. As a child I collected, at various times, badges, sticker collections and football programmes. All equally futile, but I remember the joy they gave me at the time. It may have been the hunter gatherer instinct inherent in males. As a teen, your foraging generally extends as far as the kitchen cupboard. To own a collection of something that you mistakenly believe will be worth thousands in years to come affords you hope as you admire the array you have amassed through the medium of mass consumerism.

I also collected car badges. The Beastie Boys were responsible for an onslaught of major teenage misdemeanour on the mean streets of Sussex as we fought for our right to party with other people’s Volkswagen emblems as crude amateur jewellery.

A collection should say something pretty monumental about the collector. If the collection cannot be admired or envied, then it is futile. A ‘collective’ of collectors named Atlantic PATH pooled their resources to claim a Guinness record of 24,999 toenail clippings. Being an undiagnosed spectrum dweller, my only concern is 'why, oh why, did they not just cut one more?' The second quandary is how these people found each other to be able to share in a collection collective.

Somewhere in the artist formerly known as the EU, Jans Veerbeck has a collection of toasters. Some models are worth £1,500, which is some serious dough. Among a collection only accessible to the well-bred, one has to question the aesthetic beauty of a Breville 2 slice, but one man’s junk is another man’s gold and all that. The king of oddity award undoubtedly goes to Graham Barker, who is on a one-man mission to make the Grahams of the world seem interesting, He has collected an impressive 22.1 grams of belly button fluff. He started the collection in 1984. Not only does he categorise the fluff by date, he stores them in carefully labelled jars with which to reminisce.

Being a curious sort, I visited Ann Atkin's house in Devon recently. She is the owner of the world’s first gnome sanctuary. Ann, who charges people to visit the gnome and gardens, insists on visitors wearing red pointy hats around the grounds, like a softer, non-racist version of the KKK. Surprisingly it was thoroughly enjoyable and we left the activity in rude elf.

Looking for inspiration for my next collection, my wife has just admitted she used to collect sweet wrappers, which she kept in a scrapbook. I find that rather odd; maybe it’s a Cornish thing. Still, it beats her current hoard of parking tickets so I’m happy to buy her some sweets to add to the collection if she manages to get through the month without another demand for payment. That will be cause for celebrations and will soften her position when I casually mention the loft will soon be frequented by a life size Chewbacca with real hair and Wookie voicebox.