“WHY don’t you just say that you’d like a cup of tea?” my husband says to me after I’ve picked up my mug several times and swung it about on my finger, drawing attention to its emptiness.

As hints go, it’s not very subtle. But with men you can’t make covert gestures or mutter cryptic messages when you want them to do something, because they just won’t get it. You have to take a sledgehammer to crack the nut and tell them straight.

More than 80 per cent of men are oblivious to hints dropped by their partners. According to a study by Boots, half of all subtle signs are lost in translation. Yet despite this, an ever-hopeful 73 per cent of women carry on dropping hints in the run-up to Christmas.

In my experience, which I admit isn’t vast, men don’t pick up hints. I can spend hours – no, make that years – casually mentioning something I like, even pointing to it in a brochure but still it doesn’t appear under the Christmas tree.

My husband would say that with my track record of taking things back he is erring on the side of caution, and I do have some sympathy with that, but extremely heavy hints do tend to go unnoticed.

My youngest daughter is about as subtle as a brick through a window in drawing attention to her Christmas wish-list. She leaves the Argos catalogue on the sofa with little strips of paper protruding from various pages, on which items are circled in thick marker pen.

“They’re just things I’m saving up for,” she says, with an innocent expression on her face.

It could be said that she’s a typical woman, as one-in-five of us leave Christmas lists lying around. I could do that, but it wouldn’t get read. My husband would assume it was a shopping reminder and pass it to me as I set off for Asda.

Some women rely on friends and family to pass on information. Chinese whispers can lead to all manner of problems. A pair of woolly tights could become a pair of bedside lights.

I wish my eldest daughter would drop a few early hints as to what she wants. She keeps things very close to her chest until the last minute. She’ll probably announce on Christmas Eve that she’d like a rare first edition book that’s only available once every decade at auction.

There’s nothing more irritating than having devoted time and effort to buying gifts for your children, only to hear them going on and on about something completely different.

At least my husband is easy to please. Socks, beer and a Toblerone and he’s more than happy.