Konges Sløjd Kaleidoscope

I’d completely forgotten how good kaleidoscopes are until these arrived. You look through expecting something fairly simple, give the end a tiny turn and suddenly you’re staring into this ridiculously intricate little world of colour and pattern. Then you turn it again and it’s completely different.

Konges Sløjd has given the outside the same treatment, with four illustrated designs including tigers, swans and their brilliant little dressed-up animal characters. They have that lovely old-fashioned toy-shop feel to them, rather than looking like another plastic thing destined for the bottom of a drawer.

They’re small enough for children to hold easily, with a simple twist mechanism that changes the pattern inside as they turn it. No batteries, no instructions, no real objective. Just looking, twisting, looking again and inevitably passing it to somebody else because you need to see this one.

A really lovely little present, party bag upgrade or stocking filler — and almost certainly one the adults will have a go with too.

Sold individually in assorted designs.