One of the major problems with non-vertical windows of every sort is that any dirt which accumulates blocks the normal drainage channels which they incorporate. This frequently leads to a dam effect whereby rainwater is trapped and overflows the lip of the window -into the building itself.

These windows are usually on rooves or out of sight and the problem is not dealt with until water ingress has caused expensive damage.

Today’s invention is a simple device which will sweep dirt from an unattended window before this situation arises. I noticed, when driving my car in winter, that a substantial block of snow was spinning on the rear window: in the grip of a stable vortex (the real streamlines don’t resemble those in the brochure, it seems).

I propose to equip all skylight-type windows with a thin disc of translucent plastic (PTFE, with a small boss on the rear face perhaps would minimise friction).

Powered only by the wind, this would carry some small vanes on the outer surface and be constrained to spin across the face of the window, spitting dirty water off before any residual clag could be deposited.

Helicopters are designed so that if they sustain a loss of engine power, their main rotor will continue to rotate, allowing the pilot to ‘autogyro’ safely to earth.

Ignoring the brochure-speak, there are numerous reasons why a rotary wing aircraft might find itself needing to make a controlled, unpowered touchdown (without the vertebrae-fusing impact). Some light aircarft carry parachutes which support the entire fuselage in such an emergency descent. Try launching a chute above a spinning rotor, though, and the result is obvious.

Today’s invention consists of a number of airbags slung in a pod beneath a helicopter. On sensing a catastrophic loss of engine power, these would be deployed in quick sequence, forming an inflated aerofoil shape (unlike automotive bags, they would be unperforated and remain inflated for several minutes).

This improvised wing would enable a pilot to enter a controlled glide and also cushion the inevitable return to terra-all-too-firma.

Chipboard, especially that stuff that’s dressed up in plastic laminate, really is a dreadful material. Used to create cheap and cheerful furniture. especially (loosely) fitted kitchens, it’s sensitive to water, frays when a screw comes anywhere near and worst of all it warps under almost any load.

I’m thinking here particularly about the idea of using such stuff in the guise of bookshelves. Unless you are prepared to employ a support every 20 cm, chipboard shelves start to sag visibly the moment they are asked to hold more than a few copies of the lightest of lowbrow literature.

Today’s invention is for those people who have shelving requirements beyond their budget. When using those vertical metal ‘spines’ that bolt to the wall and into which slot triangular supports, buy one extra vertical per intended shelf (these are normally very cheap) and screw it to the (horizontal) rear edge of each one, using the holes povided.

Presto: you can accommodate even Encyclopaedia Britannica, without any unsightly shelf deflection.

Western countries are struggling under a mountain of supersized personal blubber with people increasingly unwilling to suffer the discomfort that aerobic exercise entails.

Just breathing becomes seriously traumatic when you first start to exercise (many people never experience any other from of difficulty when exerting themselves, eg muscle pain, because their breathing difficulties keep their activity in check -and then they stop).

Today’s invention is a system which can reduce breathing distress and thus prolong exercise.

Running carrying an oxygen cylinder is an unattractive option. So imagine a light facemask with simple flapvalves at both inlet and outlet. A battery-powered fan, like that in a hairdryer, blasts air continuously onto the outside of the mask (when activated). The airflow from the fan impinges on the inlet valve which opens when the wearer breathes in -providng him/her with an extra jet of oxygen in the same way as an automtive supercharger works.

When the wearer breathes out, the inlet valve is shut and the outlet valve forced open. With the inlet closed, its air flow is directed, via a kind of U-bend, across the outlet valve -forming a region of sharply decreased pressure and thus sucking more of the wearer’s exhalation from the lungs.

This might be valuable for either the very unfit or eg soldiers on a battlefield working at the limit of their physical abilities.

I’m sick to death of buying vacuum cleaners that don’t. Whether it’s a Dyson (greedy price, tacky mechanicals) or a Hoover (zero capacity, instant clog) they simply fail to pick up enough of the crud that inhabitats my floors.

So, inevitably, today’s invention (patent not pending) is a truly revolutionary machine that could take the exciting international marketplace for skin cell collection and dust management by storm (or so it will boast on the packaging -these cleaner guys do get carried away sometimes).

This consists of the usual box with an inlet and an outlet pipe. Inside the box, at the outlet, a glorified roll of toilet paper would be inserted, so that the paper covers the outlet (lying on some kind of open grid, for support). As the household games progress, the paper begins quickly to clog with small particles but -here’s the fun bit- the paper is continuously advanced across the outlet so that suction is uninterrupted by clogging. Something like a 35mm film advance mechanism, from the days before digital eveything.

The paper could be made slightly adhesive so that much of the dirt would remain attached to it for easier cleaning out later. The larger detritis would fall in the box in the usual way.

It would even be possible to have the paper move faster when the power drawn by the motor increased (ie when clogging was taking place). Somebody really smart will come up with a way to advance the paper using the motion of the air itself.

The manufacturers thus get to sell something ‘New and Improved’ together with superannuated bog roll.

When he wasn’t engaged in squeezing the back of his eyeball with various metal implements, Isaac Newton spent a lot of time scribing lines across a spectrum which he had arranged to fall onto his wall at Trinity College. One interesting thing he discovered was that the presence of these lines somehow allowed more colours to be seen than when they weren’t there.

If you count the distinct colours visible along the top edge of the image, it comes to perhaps five. Repeating this at the bottom edge of the image results in a count of almost twice that number. (This phenomenon may account for why stained glass windows are so vivid and why shops display different coloured garments piled under lights casting sharp shadows).

Today’s invention makes use of this 17th Century discovery (Why did anyone invent anything, before they invented ‘Intellectual Property’? -discuss ; )

During the manufacture of products, the precise amounts of any dye or surface colorant used can be controlled -if that’s important to marketability. Post production, when all you have is a swatch of material or a splash of paint, it’s much harder to find a perfect match from within a spectrum of available shades.

The delineation described above enables enhanced colour discrimination and so viewing colour samples side by side through two adjacent ‘windows,’ formed from a handheld, sharp-edged black frame, would enable significantly better matches to be achieved).