More Power

If you're not already sitting down, I suggest you do so immediately, because the following may shock you. So, are you sitting comfortably? No laptops, tablets or smartphones in danger of being dropped? Okay, here goes: women do more housework than men. I know, staggering, isn't it? I almost dropped the remote when I read that. According to the Office for National Statistics, people spent less time on housework in 2005 than in 2000, but women still do more, spending an average of 2 hours 31 minutes per day on housework, compared with men, who spend 1 hour 53 minutes per day trying to earn enough brownie points to get away with a couple of hours of FIFA later on. Doesn't that seem a little odd? Stay-at-home dads have become socially acceptable, when a mere thirty years ago, the idea would have been laughable, at best. There is now no job (with the odd exception, such as male model) that a woman cannot do. The sexes are now more evenly matched, in more ways, than they have ever been, and yet women still do a full 25% more housework per average day. Most people have their own idea why this is, and their own idea is almost invariably due to their own gender, but consider this; your average household appliance isn't what you'd call masculine, is it? I'll elaborate.

A while ago, I noticed that some vacuum cleaners have a dial that allows the user to choose just how much suction they want, anything from 'Min' to 'Max'. There's your first clue that this machine wasn't designed with a man in mind; no numbers. Men like to quantify things. There's no point in knowing that 'Max' gives more suction that 'Min', when you have no idea how much more. You need numbers, preferably percentages, so that the minimum is expressed as a pitifully small percentage of the motor's available power and the maximum is, obviously, 100%. In fact, the range should not be anything so effete as from 'Min' to 'Max', it should start at 'Max' and go up to 'Are you sure about this?'.

What I'm suggesting, here, is not simply that manufacturers label appliances in such a way as to make them appear more powerful, but that they make appliances which are more powerful. With this mindset, and invaluable input from friend, colleague and fellow visionary Malcolm* (who introduced me to the engineering mantra 'if you can't fix it with a hammer, it's an electrical issue'), I set about creating a whole new range of man-friendly household appliances.

First to be reinvented was the vacuum cleaner. As mentioned above, it should be substantially more powerful than anything currently on sale. Most vacuum cleaners tend to have 1000-2000 watt motors. Pitiful, isn't it? 11 kilowatts (equivalent to about 15 horsepower), now that's more like it. That's the sort of power that gets your attention. It should be, because that's the sort of power that will be capable of sucking the pile off a carpet, never mind any dust. The machine should be bagless, partly because changing bags is the sort of dirty job that I for one will avoid unless it absolutely must be done, and partly because this beast will be able to double as a garden vac. Bypass the dust chamber, attach a large nylon bag to the exhaust and you'll be able to rid the garden of leaves, having just rid the living room of crisp fragments. A butane-fuelled afterburner in the exhaust (deactivated in outdoor mode, so as not to set the bag on fire) will incinerate any pet hair, etc... that makes it out the other side, thus our cleaning behemoth will have a hypo-allergenic sticker on it, to assure prospective buyers that it is safe for people with hay fever, asthma, etc... Finally, it needs a clunkily industrial-sounding name. 'Suction Multi-Tool' should suffice.

Next, the kitchen; a room which should already be fairly appealing, as it is full of things which require power. But aside from the fridge and kettle, what is there to attract a man's attention? First thing to be upgraded is the cooker. I'm thinking an oven capable of melting copper, a grill that can turn sausages into charcoal in a few minutes and one big burner for a hob. You'll lose the odd saucepan handle now and then, but it can be used as a barbecue; every man's preferred method of cooking. This cooker will come with a set of ceramic heat-resistant tiles, to be fixed to the ceiling directly above the monster hob, to make sure nothing structural catches fire. And prevent bits of burnt plaster landing in your food.

Moving on, and sticking with the gas burner idea, consider the toaster. Nothing wrong with toasters as they are, you might think. And you'd be right; there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the basic design. Put bread in, wait a few minutes, toast comes out. Job done. But what if, instead of using the heat radiating from a hot wire, toasters had several small burners? Put bread in, wait up to four seconds, toast comes out. Job done. Faster. And all that's required is a way of getting gas to the toaster. I'm thinking something along the lines of those little camping gas cylinders. Maybe the toaster should come with heat-resistant tiles, too, to allow it to be used underneath cupboards, without all your plates falling out.

There's nothing terribly wrong with the blender as it is, either, but more power can only improve it. I understand some companies can sell you a blender with one third of a horsepower, which is obviously nowhere near powerful enough. And so I have found one redeeming feature in the Toyota Prius: its twin electric motors, which produce a combined 80 horsepower. Putting just one of these in our improved blender will endow it with 40 HP. Take that, Moulinex. Seriously, never mind blending fruit for a smoothie, that'll blend gravel.

And then we have the washing machine. Loathsome things, washing machines. I've never figured out how to use any particular machine without help. I can see how to make any other household appliance do my bidding, but a washing machine I haven't encountered before? Someone has to show me. I find that infuriating, and I blame the dial on most washing machines which, using randomly arranged hieroglyphics and no small amount of idiosyncrasy, allows the shaman using the damn thing to choose from dozens of subtly different programmes. So that needs to go. The man-friendly washing machine will have just three (fairly vigorous) programmes; light colours, dark colours and whites. That's it. If you're wondering why there's no delicate wash, that's because men don't have delicates. At least none that aren't permanently attached. As you'd expect, it has a little more power than the one currently in your kitchen. Picture a horizontal water pipe. Now picture a chamber like an upturned bottle connected to the pipe, sticking straight up. This is what will allow the washing machine to deliver the white wash to end all white washes. The chamber will be, say, three quarters full of water, with air at the top. As the machine heats the water, steam will form above the water. As steam builds, this pressurises the water, preventing it from boiling further, allowing the water to remain liquid far above 100 degrees. Think a boil wash is good at getting stains out? Try the same thing at 300 degrees or so. That'll get the black out of onyx. It'll need a pressure release valve, of course, in case of emergency, and it probably wouldn't be safe to blow superheated steam into your drains, but look at it this way; you can have your own geyser in the back garden.

Well, that's it for now. I had a couple of other ideas, but they're just not feasible. My idea for a super powerful microwave can't happen, due to some silly little law about background radiation. And the less said about the deep fat fryer, the better.


*Surname withheld, to protect the guilty.