LONDON - The British, it was revealed yesterday, own £3.2 billion ($8.7 billion) worth of household goods and gadgets that they never use.
Of 1000 people questioned in a survey conducted for a home insurance company, two thirds admitted to having one household gadget gathering dust, 38 per centto at least two, and one in 20 to five or more.
In our house, I rather think we might be in the five-or-more category, although at least I've stopped buying expensive devices - supposedly labour-saving but in fact labour-creating - for my wife's birthdays.
"So what is Jane getting you for your birthday?" my aunt asked when I showed her the undeniably sleek ice-cream maker I bought Jane last year for her 39th. "A vacuum cleaner?"
Still, the Magimix Gelato 2200 was at least pressed into action on a rare summer's evening.
This summer, however, it has lain dormant while Ben and Jerry have re-entered our lives. The Magimix Gelato 2200, like the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat Grilling Machine, was consigned to a remote shelf as soon as the first flush of enthusiasm had faded.
Apparently, the most popular unused gadget is the toasted sandwich-maker. Presumably these things must be era-sensitive because in the early 1980s, when I was at university, it was a must-have kitchen accessory.
Burning your tongue on the lava-hot cheese was, like the one-night stand, a student rite of passage.
Electric knives, soda streams and foot spas fill the next places on the unused list.
