Womens’ 20 Best and Worst Gadgets

How fitting it is that the company behind the most annoying advert jingle of all time has published a list of the best and worst household gadgets of all time – from a female perspective.

The car insurance firm polled 3000 women on their most beloved and detested gadgets with the shower radio and television coming bottom and top of that list respectively.

Without wishing to play to stereotypes, the worst gadgets generally circled a food theme with Soda Stream, Teasmaid and a host of labour saving culinary devices featuring at the arse end of the list.

The shower radio was considered to have a host of design flaws, most notably, failing to broadcast music at an acceptable level above the din of the water, being inclined to let in water and for batteries to leak.

At the other end of the list were a good mix of beauty products, kitchen appliances and personal media technology.

Top 20 Greatest Household Gadgets

1. Television - Interesting choice for number one, surely us girls aren’t as reliant on the TV for kicks as the menfolk?

2. Microwave - We all know the benefits of the microwave, but here’s a handy micro-tip courtesy of Television’s finest; Kim and Aggie.

To clean a dirty microwave you can dispense with all those powerful grime cleaners, simply get a bowl of hot water, add half a lemon and put the microwave on full for a few minutes. It loosens up all the crud while you can sit back with your facial massager.

3. Vacuum cleaner - I think it an ironic and fairly wrong stereotype we voted for this in the top gadgets but all that aside, where would we be without it? Hanging rugs and carpets in the back garden and battering out the dust with a rolling pin.

4. Hair dryer – A vital cog in the getting-ready regime, every hotel and swimming pool in the world must have a hair dryer of some kind. They’ve even got them in pubs and clubs. In a previous life we used to kick the dog till it farted and stood behind it for a gust.

5. Kettle - what’s nicer than a cup of tea? Nothing, that’s what. What’s nicer than a boiled (unsliced) egg? Nothing. The kettle. All hail the kettle.

6. DVD player - The linear nature of technology and we found out we can’t be arsed with fast-forwarding and clunky black matt tape but instead favour the shiny disc format. Although it’s maybe appropriate to give the DVD another five years before hard drives take over and we start trash-talking the invention, it has thus far seen off the Blu-Ray.

7. Hair straighteners - An absolute must for any dressing table, even my boyfriend uses them. Gone are the days when nothing but a hairdryer, a comb and a lot of serum did the straightening job. Think where we’d have been if they’d invented these sooner. The 70’s would have been different for a start, Kevin Keegan would have looked marginally more attractive as a permless poser.

8. Mobile phone - Can you imagine living in a world without mobile phones? Unthinkable.  But even ten years ago they were still something of a status symbol. Now it’s the personal hub of all social, professional and leisurely activity. Music, organisation, camera, internet; it may have been a causal factor in the break-down of community spirit but we wouldn’t have it any other way. Would we?

9. Telephone - Yes because us girls just love nattering away on the phone for hours and hours; it’s how we get our gossip don’t you know.

10. Laptop - Shiny happy people holding hands metaphorically through the wonder of the laptop, Wi-Fi and professional mobility.

11. Television remote control - I had a chuckle at this one and why it wasn’t further up the list. Probably because we just take it for granted that the remote control comes with the television. It wasn’t always like this and we actually had to get off our arse to change the channel. The cheek of it.
There was a humorous halfway-house when the RC came on a wire but the dog just chewed through it while the kids limbo’d under it and the baby crawled through it causing a the famous, near-fatal TV crash of 1976.

12. Digital camera - The device that which took the grim reaper hand in hand to the door of high street photo developing shops and said, “wait about and have a fag, it’s only a matter of time”. We have taken the developing and printing of photographs out of the labs and into the home; we capture more memories than ever before and share them with a worldwide audience of our choosing. That has to be progress.

13. Alarm clock - The oldest excuse in the book for being late for work gone in an instant with the creation of the alarm clock. We can’t even claim not to have one as they appear in most phones as standard. We still try though: ‘the alarm didn’t go off’. Oh really didn’t it, is it the only alarm in the world which malfunctions in the 21st Century? Oh bring it in so we can have a look and gaze at this wonder of anti-technology.

14. Electric toothbrush - Everything’s electric nowadays, I long to think of a product where adding electricity just won’t benefit anyone. The waterbed perhaps.

15. Computer - One day humans and computers will breed as one, when they take over we won’t be so happy. Mark my words.

16. Bathroom scales - The worst invention ever constructed which serves only to remind me at half past eight in the morning thawt I’m a fat cow and need to stop eating chips laden with grease from my deep fat fryer.  Awful awful awful invention; the slimming mirror, now that’s something I subscribe to.

17. Toaster - Where are we on the bread = fat debate? It seems to change every year.  Bread used to be a staple of our western diet but suddenly everyone and their blinkin’ mother has a wheat intolerance or IBS caused by stress and the trigger always seems to be bread.

Bread facilitated the evolution of humankind but, as with meat we now revolt against it in our ever-evolving food chain economical debates. Toast is amazing, it is essential to our evolution, especially with peanut butter on top. That’s where the next superman will come from, a jar of peanut butter.

18. Electric shower pump - Because water needs to be pumped into your face faster and harder.

19. Iron - Just to bay to another stereotype, long gone are the days when we heated up a big smooth hunk of metal and rubbed it all over our finery. The humble household iron shits on the fangled trouser press. The iron is solidly one of the few things we can say with some confidence will always be around in some form. Self-ironing clothes may be the only way to put the ironing oligarchs out of business.

20. Mp3 player - Fittingly in the anti-position of the Mini Disc player. MP3’s provide another example of a device which has humped community spirit. Your entire musical library of all the songs you own (and most you don’t, legally) on one little gizmo the size of a wallet. Call me old fashioned but I prefer the hard-copy.  Still, we love our music and we’re all individuals, that’s why we all have MP3 players. Strange lot aren’t we?

Top 20 Worst Household Gadgets

1. Shower radio - Prone to failure, unsatisfactory sound and wound up collecting rust in the bathroom cabinet.

2. Electric candles - Tacky, unappealing, lacking any authenticity and how much does a candle really cost anyway. They had all the poise and elegance of Christmas with The Gallaghers. The Shameless lot, not Liam and Noel, they don’t use electric candles for no one.

3. Electric nail file - Ordinary ones work perfectly well, why do we need an electric one, plus your nails are supposed to be done in one direction, not having them beavered down to the nub with a Rampant Rabbit of a beast. Actually speaking of that, where’s its inclusion on the list?

4. Soda Stream - Ahh the Soda Stream. Everyone had one, yet no one used it after about the first year. I think I’m old enough to remember why; the gas cylinder cost a hefty sum of money, think we were talking about £15 and that was about 15 years ago. I’d rather have a Tab Cola straight from the horse’s mouth thank you very much.

5. Teasmaid - My gran used to swear by it, literally. She woke up in the morning as the thing scalded her. Don’t know if that’s libelous although I haven’t seen a bona fide Teasmaid in years so I think I’m safe.  Amazon do quite a nice product along the same lines if this hasn’t put you off.

6. Pancake maker - My sister-in-law called me over to smell pancake mix and asked what it reminded me of. For those of you who don’t know, have a sniff the next time you’re near pancake mix. The humble Pancake Maker goes in the cupboard along with the Soda Stream machine, filed under things you don’t need, rarely use and if you need to use them, you’d sooner go the old fashioned route.

7. Fondue set - The kind of thing you thought would enhance any dinner party until you realise you’re not that fond of fondue and it’s a buggar to clean.

8. Electric fluff remover - Why would you need to shell out on this when the old sellotape trick works just as well on your clothes.

9. Facial tanner - Who’s to say this won’t make a return as calls for sunbeds to be banned are ever-prevalent.

10. Egg slicer - Oh but you can use it for mozzarella too. If I ever become the kind of eejit that eats egg and mozzarella often enough to require a device to slice it I’d rather put my head in it. As ever, the humble knife works just as well.

11. Deep fat fryer - Now here’s a controversial one. I don’t care how low fat, reduced carb and no added salt you get your oven chips, there’s no substitute for the real deal. Chips never tasted better than when swimming in grease thank you very much.

12. Hair crimpers - Just wait and see, hair crimpers will be back as soon as the revolving beast that is the fashion industry tells us that the crimped look is in again. Retro-chic, the re-emergence of the Mod look; it all comes back around dah’ling.

13. Electric popcorn maker - I have a very personal reason to be angry at the electric popcorn maker. Before mentioning that microwave popcorn is just as easy and tastes the same, the electric version got me in a huge amount of debt.

Ohh sign up for a Barclaycard and get a free popcorn maker!
Waw, a popcorn maker – for free! I’ll really use that; now allow me to get into shedloads of debt whilst eating really unsatisfying popcorn. A great investment that.

14. Waffle iron - We’re not American and we don’t accessorise every meal with waffles and syrup. Just like pancakes, for all we actually eat them, I’d sooner just use the grill or the toasted version. Another item filed under unnecessary.

15. Electric carving knife - Responsible for countless Sunday-roast related injuries, this scaled down version of a Sopranos tool in assisted body composition never quite took off.

16. Digital photo frame - The jury’s still out on this one I feel. The worst part is when you’re not able to bypass the speed setting. Sitting there getting shown snap after snap of little baby Callum in various poses at a rate of what seems like one frame an hour as cooing maw and paw give you detailed explanation about the scenario.

The child is sitting bored in the corner; I can see him there, why don’t I just look at him now? No, no look at him in the past.

17. Back scratcher - There’s nothing like a good back scratch, but it should be a luxury, not part of your regime where you end up scratching your back into a leather-bound fortress of itch-oppressing tyranny.

18. Electric can opener - You have to be some kind of lazy to use an electric can opener. How much time does it actually save once you firmly attach it? Generally speaking you need to stand there and hold the button down anyway so you’re still chained to the can-opening regime albeit in slightly more relaxed fashion. Not worth the expense.

19. Electric facial massager - I can’t see the problem with this myself, a massage is always nice on any part of the body, why not the face?

20. Mini disc player - You have to feel sorry for the bods who invented the mini-disc. It’s reminiscent of the VHS vs. BetaMax war, as soon as it came along it was immediately usurped by a cheaper, cleaner more handsome format in the MP3, it became a must-have and totally pointless within the same sneeze of time.