h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

They're hard to put up, hard to take down and difficult to store. Plus the legs are far too easy to trip over.

But they are invaluable for entertaining bored (oops, pardon the pun) children.
Throw a blanket over and they are a tent, a cave, a pirate ship (ok, my kids have vivid imaginations), an igloo...
Collapse them and go surfing...
They're a great height when you can't be bothered to schlepp the baby into the room where the changing table is....
And, I've heard, they're just great for putting under that hot, flat, steamy thing when you want to get your clothes a bit unwrinkled. Although I wouldn't know, because there are some eskimos living in my ironing board, claiming squatters' rights.

What about irons? Ironing is a real pain, and I'm sure somebody msut be able to come up with a better design for one.

I think we're going about it the wrong way. We must first change the trend towards ironed clothes, then develop "less wrinkly" clothes. No need to iron ever again. We should espouse wrinkled clothes for the sake of the environment.
Irons are, however, useful for other things than ironing.

like cooking bacon for example ...

Perhaps we could remarket them as steam fryers ... teflon coat the undersides hey presto ...

I believe teflon coating is already available..... and it's a bit of an inconvenient surface for bacon, isn't it... either upside down or.... anyway, didn't I see someone making toast with an iron once in a film?

i thnk it was in benny and joon, but i could be wrong.

Iron can be a horrible weapon, too. I broke my toe with one last summer.

It was. Thanks, that's been bugging me all day.

Permanent-press shirts (usually half cotton and half
polyester) have been around since the 1950's, so the
only reason for ironing them yourself (rather than
taking them to the cleaners) is if the only store you
have access to is Bloomingdale's, which stocks only natural-
fiber shirts.

I have not ironed anything in the last 25 years, and I
don't plan to spoil this perfect record.

My vote for "bad" products is cast for the printer
that you hook up to your computer. It lasts less than
3 years (and costs more to repair than replace),
is always slower than the previous one you had, and
costs you a small fortune (which used to be a large fortune
before the stock market crashed )in ink cartridges.

I hate computer printers also... They work well the first time that you use it, so you immediately are led into a false sense of security. After that first use, they screw up and you have to press that little button on the printer every page you try to print. Another thing is that if you accidentaly tell it to print something you didn't want to print (like, for instance, 1024x768 picture) then you can't cancel the print. If you try to press the power buttton to turn it off, it converts the rest of the document into alien pentedecimal and prints it out like that.

My all-time irritatingly bad design is the 'phone plug. It's fiddly and has a little plastic lug that keeps on catching on the lead and/or getting broken off. It's also fragile, and requires replacing too often (in our household, anyway).
A GOOD design is the British 13-amp plug. This is a lot safer and more robust than those I've seen anywhere else in the world. Except when, on your way to the bathroom across a dark bedroom at 3 a.m., you stand on its upturned prongs in your bare feet. This brings a whole new meaning to the word 'pain'

Nope, I like my printer. So far it's worked just fine and dandy thank you very much.

i DEFINATELY agree with the plug statement! i've had the misfortune to have jumped onto an upturned plug. now that WAS painful!

Not only are phone plugs a nuisance, but if you travel anywhere in the world you will quickly realise that a completely different phone plug is required in each country. Even countries you would expect to have many things in common all have different phone plugs. Some of them are real monsters too. There are over 15 different phone plugs for Europe alone...

CR

How in God's name did they still manage to make telephones that all look more or less identical, I wonder?

I like phones

Phones are brilliant.

Lets all move our focus from ironing boards (which are a little dull) to phones which are exciting. And fun.

It's Chaos theory - the more you focus on getting one thing organised, the more likely everything else will go to pot.

CR