Old wives' tale

What else do you do in that week between Christmas and New Year but carry out experiments around the home?

At a friend's house with new carpets, we got onto the old discussion about white wine being a remedy for red wine spillages. Handily this experiment-sized piece of carpet was floating about and we used it to calm our inquisitive minds. Happily the old wives have been speaking the truth all along - white wine, given a bit of a scrub and left to dry, will almost perfectly remove all traces of red.

We can also reveal that piling salt on a red wine spillage and leaving it soaks up most of the liquid, and can be used when you haven't got a bottle of white handy.

A productive evening. Apologies to those of you who already knew that the old wives were right all along.