Design for 21st century life

The Design Council has published its latest list of Millennium Products.

These aren't a bunch of snake oil solutions for future proofing your PC, but the best of British design, a shortlist of the gizmos which may be on display in the Millennium Dome. Unfortunately, nobody has thought to give them names which actually mean anything, so I thought I'd translate a few.

I was going to quip that the Endoluminal Brush sounds like something for lighting up people's bottoms. But as it's made by an outfit called FAS Medical, it probably is something for lighting up people's bottoms.

Still, it sounds less painful than the Multifinger Imaging Caliper or the Autodestruct Syringe. Let's hope it doesn't get contaminated with Endoseal, as I for one don't want my endo sealed. I think I'll stick with the Sonic Irrigator.

Before we leave medical breakthroughs, a pat on the back to the guys at Thomas Ferguson & Co for their Anti-Bacterial Tea Towel. Even now they are toiling to develop the Cancer-Curing Baby Wipe and the Cast-Away-Your-Crutches-And-Walk Mop.

It's good to see speech recognition getting the, err, recognition it deserves, with Speech Machines' CyberTranscriber.

But I can't imagine the Acme Plate Reader will contribute anything very enthralling: 'Blue with flowers round the edge'; 'White earthenware'; 'Oi, this one's a saucer! You trying to be funny?'

Maybe Non-Iron Cotton Clothing and Non-Polish Footwear from Marks & Sparks will go down well with help desk personnel. Perhaps they'll wear them when they go for job interviews, armed with their Cameleon CVs : 'Windows NT, never 'eard of it ... I mean, piece of piss, been supporting it for years.'

Then there's the Aluminium Bumper Nut. Well, we've all had that type in our rear view mirrors, haven't we? I suppose the best thing we can do is tell him to Tapoff, which is what the designers of the Essential String Method will say, when asked for the zillionth time: 'How long is it, then?'

I don't like the idea of Sainsbury's City Petrol and City Diesel getting together with Fuel Catalyst and GAS-1. If they do, the curators may need Tyco's Carbon Monoxide Fire Detector, or even Acer Snowmec's Indoor Snowmaking System.

And I'm worried that only the wings of BA's Airbus will be on display.

Does this mean the fuselage and tail are not millennium compliant and will plummet, Icarus-like, on New Millennium's Day, leaving only the wings to flap forlornly into Heathrow?

I confess I was a bit confused by the entry entitled Bellows Welder High Resolution Video. Then I realised that it must be the latest straight-to-video release, 'High Resolution', starring the Hollywood all-action hero, Bellows Welder.

And finally, as they say on the telly, the most important announcement of the new millennium. The name of the fifth Teletubby has been revealed by Bedouin UK - he will be called Mossi-Pod Combi.

Paul Bray is a freelance IT journalist.