If you invest in shares one way of doing it with some degree of surety is to go for human weakness.

For example, you don't see many drinks groups coming in with poor profits and if you care to check the current share price of tobacco and cigarettes group BAT you will find that it is over £10, a near high. So we have established that drink and drugs sell . . . what, then, is the other great winner?

Sex. Yeah, good spot. Hence it was revealed yesterday that sexually adventurous Americans helped to push Britain's SSL International into profit, buoyed by strong sales of its Pleasuremax condoms and its new Play range of sex lubricants.

SSL said its warming "Play Heat" and its menthol-laced "Play Tingle" were helping drive sales growth in the year to March 31.

"The lubricants are going very well, particularly in the US," chief executive Garry Watts noted.

"We're seeing a consumer change here. They're not just being bought by people who want to cure a particular problem, but also by people who want to experiment with their sex lives and enjoy them. We think we've hit a little niche."

A little niche! Sounds like a big niche to me.

Pre-tax profit was £21.7 million compared to a loss of £5 million the year before.

So there is still some truth in the old World War II grumble in the build up to the Normandy landings that the Americans were "overpaid, oversexed and over here".

Overpaid still, over sexed by the sound of it, but not over here - well since 9/11 there's been a lot fewer of them.

It seems we just take their money instead. But elsewhere on the globe SSL is treading a little more cautiously.

Mr Watts said the new Durex Play range of vibrators had been launched in five markets, most recently Scotland last weekend.

"This is something we want to launch cautiously and carefully into the high street, but the initial indications are good," he said.

Not surprised that they are going cautiously in Scotland. On the Presbyterian West Coast I would image vibrators are banned. OK for the young set in Edinburgh: sure to cause outrage in Stornaway. In my experience many Scots prefer porridge to passion.