So I don't have a gas oven which requires a light and I'm not a smoker. Two of the main reasons people may purchase a lighter. However there are an abundance of reasons why you may need one of these just lying about your house!

Firstly I must proclaim that I am a man with plenty of experience with barbequing! I can cook to perfection and satisfy everyone who tries the food. They said practice makes perfect and I had plenty of time for that. So I have to admit that maybe I haven't cooked a vast variety of food, nor have I used a real barbeque. What can I say, times are hard as a student! I've had to resort to tiny, foil tray, disposables. Nonetheless, with the amount of barbeques you can have in your spare evenings at University I've had plenty of time to perfect my skills and can still cook a mean burger and sausage! Obviously this isn't a review on my cooking nor disposable barbeques but simply introduces my biggest tool of the trade; the long handled lighter!
For those of you who have purchased a disposable BBQ, be it at the beach or in the garden, I'm sure you may have experienced a similar problem; the top of the barbeque has a wire grill! It's like a force field for the coal. All you want to do is light it up to begin your afternoon cooking and you can't even do the first step! First I tried a standard lighter which my friend chucked to me. Firstly, no matter which direction you flick it, the flame heads upwards. The two choices you have are to turn the lighter upside down and pressed against the grill in the hope that it catches, but you'll most likely burn your fingers in the process. The next option is to turn the BBQ upside down and put it on top of the light so the flame is in the right direction, but this is hardly wise. Useless! The next choice was good old-fashioned matches. With a match you can drop it between the holes in the grill to get to the lighting paper. If it's a windy day however you can get through a number of matches which can become quite frustrating. There must be a better solution!

Unleash the bad boy! By bad boy, of course I'm referring to my Cricket long handled lighter. I had to run to the shop to purchase this before we could even get it lit. It would of made so much more sense to get it at first I suppose, but we live and we learn. The long handle can easily fit between the gaps in the grill making it perfect to get inside. You can direct where you want the flame to go as it's on the end of essentially a stick. This also prevents you from burning yourself as the flame is a good distance away from your hand. Long story short, the cricket lighter is a must for barbeques!
Another one of my guilty pleasures at University was my love for scented candles and oils. I necessarily go out to buy them at first, but once my girlfriend introduced me I found them more relaxing. Also, in student's slums your nose will appreciate a fragrant smell every so often. At first I started with candles which burnt to a scent, but eventually moved onto scented oils. Even these oils need a candle and burner however. This is another fantastic job for this lighter. Previously I would have to tip the candle to an angle so the flame would touch the wick. This becomes even more of a problem once it gets burnt in slightly. With my candle burner, I'd never use a full tea light in one go should could relight it maybe 2 or 3 times. As lazy as it sounds, it's so much easier to put in a long handled lighter than take out the tea light, light it and put it back in. Some scents are to bring down stress, so who wants stress putting the tea light back in! (I know, my life sounds easy right?).

If scented oils or candles aren't your thing then maybe use them to try and be creative. After my girlfriend introduced me to the candles I had to repay the favour. However as she is 5,000 miles away it's hard to get a gift to her. On Valentines Day this was definitely a problem so we decided to just have an enjoyable Skype conversation rather than presents. I did want to give her a surprise however and the best I could manage would have been a photograph. As it was Valentines Day and she introduced me to the candles I wanted to incorporate these together. Therefore I decided to spell out 'Be My Valentine' with flickering tea lights so she had a lovely image to wake up to.
If I remember it took over 100 tea lights and lighting each one by hand is very tiresome. As it was my birthday the night before I was battling through a self inflicted hangover so this didn't make it any more enjoyable. I went to my local corner shop and picked up a box of long matches to do the job. These were a nightmare! At first it was taking 3 to 5 matches per tea light! I had also arranged all of the lettering so every time I had to pick up a candle to light it ruined my display. I couldn't cope so I ended up jogging in the rain to Tesco (truly committed!) just to get a replacement Cricket lighter. When I got home this done the job perfectly. I will add that the reason I had to go to get another lighter from Tesco is because I misplaced the first. The product itself is very durable and has never actually broken on me. I can just be very clumsy sometimes!

So here are my three main uses for this lighter, but I am there are plenty more benefits that other people will have. I know many smokers that keep these in their house, and while they're not practical to keep in your pocket, they make an exceptional tool to have around the house.
Feel free to add any of your uses in the comments!

P.S - I must add, I didn't actually review design or colours of the lighter. Look up and hey presto, you can see a picture. It's looks just like a long handled lighter. No visual design awards here ;-)