Gifts for your father-in-law

The real problem: he buys his own things

Most men over fifty operate a simple system. They notice they want something, they think about it for a fortnight, and then they buy it. By the time a birthday arrives, the wanting list is empty, not because he is hard to please, but because he has already dealt with it himself.

That rules out one whole strategy: guessing at the thing he has been eyeing. What still works is buying one grade above what he buys himself.

He owns a flask. He bought it in a service station and it leaks slightly. He owns a screwdriver set from a supermarket aisle. He owns walking socks that have been washed two hundred times.

The reliable move is to replace one of those with the version he would never justify spending money on. Same object, same purpose, obviously better made. He gets to keep his habits and simply does them with better kit, which is far more welcome than being handed a new hobby.

This is also why the object has to be one he uses weekly. Upgrade a flask he takes to the allotment every Saturday, not a fishing rod he used twice in 2011.

Consumables let him off the hook

A bottle, a tasting set, good coffee, a box of the sausages from the butcher he mentions by name. Men who dislike receiving gifts usually dislike the obligation attached to them: an object sits in the house and demands to be displayed and thanked for.

Something he drinks or eats has no such demand. It gets used, he enjoyed it, and nothing has to find a shelf. If in doubt about him as a person, this category is where you should be spending your budget.

He will say you shouldn't have

He unwraps it and says, more or less flatly, that you shouldn't have. Almost every father-in-law says this. The question is what he does in the ninety seconds afterwards.

If he turns it over, reads the back of the box, or immediately puts it down next to his chair, you have got it right. If he says it is lovely and passes it straight to his wife, you have bought a decorative object for a man who does not want decorative objects. Watch for that hand-off. It is the most honest review you will ever get.

Where it goes wrong

Not: power tools, unless you know which battery system he already owns. A drill on the wrong platform means a second charger, a second set of batteries, and a polite drawer.

Not: novelty golf gifts, comedy socks or anything with 'World's Best' printed on it. He has received nine of them and thrown away eight.

Not: a subscription he has to manage. Renewals, accounts and passwords become his problem in month four, and he will quietly cancel it and never mention it.