The world’s most useless gadget

By Rupert Read

While I was thinking what to write for my column this month, I happened to be in my kitchen, and my eye lighted upon a brush of some kind that I have in my cutlery drawer. It's a weird shape, with a big curved handle, and I really have absolutely no idea what it is for. And I thought: "Hmmm: it's pretty much a useless gadget really, isn't it?" (And it isn't the only such thing in my house, try as I might to 'spring-clean' regularly.)

And then suddenly, I had the title for this month's column: The World's Most Useless Gadget… And the search was on!

To be certain that I was going to come up with the right answer, of what really is the world's most useless gadget, I did what any self-respecting journalist with a limited time-frame does these days: I put the word out on Twitter and Facebook. Within no time, the candidates came pouring in. Here are some of the highlights…

Let's start with the brushes: it seems like there are LOTS of pretty useless specialist brushes out there! For instance a specialist brush specifically for cleaning grave stones. It looks sort of like a posh toothbrush. Probably it would be easier and certainly cheaper just to use an old toothbrush, rather than lash out on this product with its (ahem) somewhat limited usefulness.

Or how about a mushroom brush? A brush specifically and (supposedly) only for cleaning mushrooms. Yes, folks, honest, I am not making this up: you can buy mushroom brushes, gravestone brushes, and weird-curvy-not-sure-what-they-are-for kitchen brushes…

Now here's another beauty, of a different kind: a tie that doubles as a golf ball polisher. How crazy is that?

And then of course there's the fascinating case that hit the headlines a few years ago: NASA once spent millions developing a pen with a pressurised ink cartridge that could be used in space / upside down. While the Russians? They simply used pencils…

One of my Facebook friends directed me to a particularly useful website, if you want to laugh at useless gadgets. Gems you can find on the site include a 'french fry holder' that fits most cars (it is specifically designed to hold certain kinds of packets of chips); Dunkin Donuts cereal; Bubble Bath marketed by blood type (truly bizarre); and an inflatable neck extender – scary!

All good clean fun, and these gadgets certainly can give us a laugh; but there is of course a serious point here: we are wasting our time, wasting our money, wasting our resources on these frivolous wastes-of-space. And doesn't it seem a sad reflection on our culture that huge resources go to make and market these useless gadgets, when they could be going instead to environmental protection, animal protection, education or - you name it…

And the winner? The world's most useless gadget? Well, the one that I think really takes the biscuit is this, that I saw at an acquaintance's house last year: an electric pepper-grinder. Yes, for those too lazy to grind their pepper by hand, you too can have an electric pepper-grinder, making an annoying whining sound as it does what you can do yourself, quicker and better. It's the in-thing, it's useless and stupid and wasteful, it's available now at a shop near you…

But, maybe I am wrong. Maybe there is an even more useless gadget out there somewhere. If there is, then do get in touch and let me know what it is! Better still: write to edpletters@archant.co.uk, and let us all know…

You can follow Rupert on Twitter at http://twitter.com/RupertRead.