Category: Whimsical inventions

It’s not exactly a majority interest, but riding a unicycle has always been on my list of personal challenges (ever since I learned how to juggle three small oranges for as long as 10 consecutive seconds. I already dropped out of astronaut training; after becoming travel sick on the bus).

Thrill-seeker that I am, I could always just buy a Segway, I suppose, but they have been outlawed as too dangerous for pavement use -this in a country where people routinely hammer down the streets in unlicensed electric wheelchairs.

Today’s invention is a training device which gradually enables unicycling. It consists of a skateboard cut in half and then bolted together in such a way that front and back halves can be slid over one other and then locked in position. A longitudinal slot allows the unicycle wheel to pass through the board. The board is then bracketed to the unicycle hub so that the main wheel and a maximum of two skateboard wheels are in contact with the ground at any one time.

This system thus acts as unicycle trainer wheels (combining two great ways to break your legs with the advantage that the wheelbase can be reduced as experience is gained). And not a gyroscope in sight.

That clanking and jangling coming from your pockets is probably loose change. Guess what? Like a lot of other things, loose change drives me slightly nuts. It’s just a hugely costly way to weigh the world down. We should switch at once to card or phone-based micropayments…can anything that costs less than a pound actually be worth buying anyway (e.g. tabloid newspapers?)

Until that day, we will still have to cart around fragments of cupro-nickel. The brown stuff is particularly galling, since it’s worth so little that even children won’t bend down to pick it up off the street. Banks won’t turn it into notes and it probably costs charities more in transporting change about than they gain when you drop into into their collecting tins.

Today’s invention is a way to rid ourselves of the damn stuff. Take a 20m section of flexible pipe or conduit and gradually fill it with brown change (so that each coin lies flat on the next). Then run it from the top of your roof to the ground.

This ersatz lightning conductor should cost less than £100 (using 1p’s) and be almost as effective as a high-spec, pure copper version. When the storm strikes, you will have removed a great deal of excess baggage from circulation.

It seems there is an almost insatiable desire to create novel wristwatches. I can’t imagine that any of these ever sells more than a few wristfuls in total but, since novelty is at such a premium in this area, I thought I’d give it a whirl too…

Today’s invention is a digital watch display which consists solely of a straight line joining what would be the endpoints of the minute and hour hands (on an analogue watchface).

I obviously mean the ‘pointy’ endpoints -near the numerals, not the central axis).

As time passes, the length and orientation of this line changes. Our experience of the movement of conventional hands allows us to determine when we need to run for that train or grab lunch.

It might be a nice, geeky touch to update the display only when the time corresponds with endpoints lying at exact pixel locations. I’ve just had a request in fact for one of these with the end of the second hand forming a triangle with the other two ends.

Not that I care much for football, but I do get disproportionately annoyed by ‘professional’ footballers who are allowed to break the rules by tugging at each others’ shirts.

Nothing at all wrong with shouldercharging, but dragging back a player because he’s beaten you, should really be a sending-off issue.

Today’s invention is a way to overcome this form of cynical rule breaking. All professional (outfield) soccer players would be equipped with a mandatory pair of mitts before each match. These would be stretchy and breathable but would restrict the fingers and thumbs into a loosely-closed fist, enveloped in a continuous fabric sheath. It would be like wearing several very thick socks on each hand -thus preventing them gripping anything.

Players could still lift the ball (using spherical, apparently thumbless hands) and perform throw-ins but without the ability to impede the opposition.

The name of the game is football, after all.

I know I’ve dealt with smoking before, but the problem persists.

Today’s invention is an ashtray which detects the presence of a cigarette and surreptitiously blows air through it in order to ‘smoke’ it faster. Ashtrays often have a directional niche into which the offending weed is placed, which makes puffing a stream of air directly at, and through, it much easier.

The smoke generated would be sucked into the body of the device and passed over some activated carbon. This would have the effect of reducing somewhat the damage which people do to themselves and others -if only by finding that they were mysteriously having to spend a great deal more, suddenly, to support their habit.

‘Spiral’ staircases cost the earth and they can also be anything but space-efficient.

Today’s invention is a way to have an elegant, even avant-garde, ‘spiral’ staircase at low cost and with the potential to fold away when not in use.

Take ten or so old bicycle frames (eg wrecks with no remaining cycle parts, of the kind you find chained to railings all over towns like Cambridge and which are routinely removed and junked). Discard any remaining forks, handlebars etc from the frames (you might choose to have the frames all grit blasted and coated in bright yellow epoxy paint, but it’s down to personal taste, darling). The forks and handlebars themselves might make hatstands, but that would be eccentric ; )

Remove the struts to where the rear axle fitted, so that you are left with a basic quadrlateral with two, nearly parallel tubes forming opposite sides. Through the tube where the forks used to be attached feed a scaffold pole long enough to run from floor to ceiling. Repeat this with all of the frames. Now array the frames in a helical pattern and attach a tread where each seat post used to go.

The frames can be moored so as to not rotate about the central pole (perhaps by tightening the old handlebar nuts). Releasing these allows the steps to be rotated into a single, space-saving ‘fin’ when not in use.

Ever interested in new ways to get some exercise, I’ve noticed that some rowing machines, or ergometers, actually now comprise a flywheel which spins in a tub of water…to give the gormless user the impression that they are actually navigating a waterway.

This is all very well but it nearly doubles the cost (and weight) of a conventional, air braked, rowing machine that is a major purchase in any case.

If you really want the genuine feel of the Mortlake Turn on an autumn Sunday, whilst also having to exert some serious physical effort, I commend today’s invention.

Rather than have a paddle wheel rotate in water, why not use a standard air resistance machine but equipped with an after-market fibreglass bath? This would be designed to fit around the seat and the rail on which it runs and also to allow the oarsman to be immersed in water to a depth (and temperature) of his/her own choice.

This more nearly simulates what real rowing is like when things aren’t going too well -whilst also providing a harder workout against the resistance of the water surrounding the rower’s moving legs and lower torso.

It’s a common observation that the fronts of road vehicles resemble faces (see also this particular ‘visual metaphor’). Even manufacturers now take this into account when designing cars to have certain ‘personalities’ -distinctly cute or aggressive: one particular Mitsubishi 4×4 is a dead ringer for a Star Wars stormtrooper.

Once you buy a car though, its expression is fixed forever. If you are naturally mild mannered, then driving a grim-faced, predatory car will send out subliminal signals to other road users that will be inappropriate (sure they will pull in out of your way on the motorway, but you may wait a long time to be waived into a traffic queue).

Today’s invention is a collection of small, variable-geometry, body-coloured ‘windows’ which can be attached to your vehicle to modify the personality of your car. This would involve alteration of the geometry of the eyes (headlights ) and mouth (grille) by automated, sliding shutters.

People are hypersensitive to even tiny changes in facial geometry and this would allow the whole expression to be altered according to a driver’s mood. Feeling under pressure and in a hurry?…set the shutters to ‘I’m fierce, out of my way’. If you want to appear non-aggressive, law-abiding and helpful, that too can be arranged.

Cars would thus take on many aspects of the emotional communications which people employ…and of course this might involve an element of deception.