Wailing Wall in a blizzard

Not many people will know this, but I collect snow globes. I’m not entirely sure if this fact makes me an eccentric or just weird but I get very excited when I hear of a close friend venturing off on their holidays to a far off land. First thing I think about is snow globes. Not ash cloud, not Ryanair baggage charges, snow globes.

There’s something about the miniaturised scene encapsulated behind that cheap transparent partition that just gets me every time. And no matter where you are in the world, you can get hold of one, please see above.

I’ve been hooked since birth; being given a snow globe in May is no easy feat for an Irish gift buyer, and it’s snowballed since then.

You can’t take them seriously, a bit like me, and they’re fantastically twee, a bit like me, and it’s a lot more interesting than collecting stamps or celebrity hair. And the best bit? They change over time; rolling with the tide of what’s hot and what’s not. Like some sort of cultural compass. Diana had one when she left us and no doubt Sam Cam’s is being moulded. If you’ve made it behind the glass walls of a snow globe, you’ve pretty much made it in life. Fact. Or at least you’re infamous for something.

Unlike Zito in Miami Vice, I openly discuss my hobby regularly and will happily support with photography. Stan Switek finds out Larry Zito collected snow globes after his death, making his former partner realise that perhaps they didn’t know each other as well as they thought. What a tragedy.

And Charles Foster Cane drops his as his dies in the opening scenes of Citizen Kane.

They would appear to be the bread and butter of popular culture, hidden behind a thick layer of tack and stigma. I love them. And if anyone’s heading to Russia in the near future, I’ve an order to put in.