I'd love to pretend I'm some wicked cool Candy Raver buying these to stop my jaw clenching from the all-night partying I'm doing. Second best, I could claim that I buy these because they're a design icon, the logo having been created by Salvador Dali. Or I could claim that I like these because they're actually a health food in disguise (the Chupa Chups website contains the slightly bizarre claim that sucking "stimulates your immune system" by "increasing the flow of oxygen", news that will no doubt gladden the hearts of men everywhere).

The sad but inescapable reality, though, is that I'm just a sad kidult who hasn't put penny sweets behind them yet. It's just that now I've got a job instead of getting 20p pocket money a week, I've graduated to these lollipops, which cost a whopping 30-40p and shine brightly in their multicoloured packaging from newsagents' counters all over the country.

Unwrap the sweet and it looks like the confectionary equivalent of a merry-go-round, a crazily red and white striped ball on a stick. Unlike other lollipops, they're pleasantly non-sticky so you can hide one in your bag without it covering your mobile phone with goo. The texture is almost unnaturally smooth and creamy, and the head is really hard, so you can get plenty of suckage in (ooo-er) before you succumb to the inevitable urge to crunch it up (not so ooo-er).

What do these taste of? Well, you'll be shocked to hear that there's a strong bouquet of artificial sweeteners with a hint of artificial strawberry thrown in. I don't care how much they say that there's "real fruit" in these, they're not going to be recommended by nutritionists as part of the five-a-day plan any time soon. I think Chupa Chups need to rethink that angle anyway, since the whole charm of these sweets is precisely that they're full of evil unnaturalness and taste like something from an alien planet which is entirely lacking in carbon-based lifeforms. Pretending they're healthy just spoils the fun.