End of champagne age

Champagne's time in the nation's typical shopping basket was brief and it has come to a predictable end.

The Office for National Statistics maintains a virtual basket of goods to track changes in prices and calculate the rate of inflation.

Champagne was slipped into the basket in 2005 at the height of the cork-popping, bubbly-soaked boom in the City and elsewhere.

But now, of course, sales are down. The age of austerity resulted in a 7% drop last year alone.

Instead, white rum (cocktails are back) goes in, along with totems of the digital age: eBooks and digital set-top boxes.

And feeding habits are shifting. Blueberries and stir-fry veg are added to the 700 items in the basket.