My Ultimate 20th-Century Inventions

My remarkable insight into the wonderful world of mankind’s creativity

1. The Aeroplane
The sheer speed with which this invention has developed astounds me. Alcock and Brown were the first people to fly the Atlantic in 1919, and then just 40 years later we had jumbo jets doing the very same journey. When you think about it, that’s a short space of time for such a big leap.

2. The Mouli Grater
I’m pretty sure it’s a 20th-century phenomenon, and it’s much better than a fancy 2008 food blender. It’s a simple hand-cranked steel cheese grater invented by a Frenchman. It’s one of those things that nobody has ever been able to improve upon. I like to grate a good old piece of cheddar on mine - maybe to then melt down and make some kind of cheesy sauce. I may also put a hunk of Parmesan in my mouli or, perhaps, a radish. Very nice.

3. The Atomic Reactor
This has had a lot of bad press. But I’m sure there’s something in atomic power, so we need to stick with it. I’ve tried to invent a few things myself in the past. I devised cash machines with a gamble function, but I couldn’t find a bank interested in it. Then I invented a machine that recycled newspaper into bog roll. You sit there on the loo reading, put your paper in the slot and once you’re done and instantly you’ve got bog roll. that’s got to be good, but not as good as an atomic reactor.

4. The Space Shuttle
I like the Space Shuttle for its ability to put up satellites. Without it, we wouldn’t have sat-nav. Beyond that, I’m slightly cynical about these passenger shuttle flights being banded around. It happened before in the early seventies. PanAm opened a ’space flight club.’ It said: “Soon we’ll be able to take you to the moon on holiday, pre-book now.” They took the money and nothing happened. Now everyone’s signing up again! The fools…

5. The PC
I hate computers but i reluctantly acknowledge that people are more in touch thanks to PCs. What I dislike about them is going to buy one. Some awful chap in a suit tells you a million things you don’t understand, takes your cash and then presents you with a box full of more boxes. I’ve got two Apple Macs and they’re pretty neat, but having to buy them was hell. I’d rather slit my wrists than go through that again.

6. Television
It’s such a marvelous world-changer. We rely on TV now, but we didn’t even have it a few decades back. It shows just how great TV is for it to make my list at all because, as a rule, I prefer mechanical things. Seriously, they do. Smell a mechanical alarm clock and tell me which one you prefer.

7. The National grid
OK, electricity is a 19th-century invention, but the idea that it could be standardized for a whole county is very much a 20th-century phenomenon. It’s such a fantastic idea and you wouldn’t want a fridge or an iPod without it. It opened the door for millions of future inventions like teleporters - I wish someone would invent them. Or an anti-gravity levitation personal-transport capsule. that would be good. It’s something I fantasize about a lot.

8. The Sellotape dispenser
I can’t think about how the world existed without Sellotape, but equally, I can’t see how anybody uses the stuff without a dispenser - it’s impossible to find the end of the tape. If this machine hadn’t been invented, the amount of people dying from stress-related illness would be double.

9. The Heart And Lung Machine
Prior to this, anything that went wrong with your heart was inoperable. The ability to stop someone’s heart while you mend it, and then fire it back up, is remarkable. I find it amazing that we could invent something as unbelievable as this in the 20th Century.

10. The Electric Screwdriver
Self-assembly furniture is such a big thing, and putting large quantity of self-tapping wood screws in by hand is absolute murder. The powered screwdriver has liberated DIY man. Can I just say that the mobile phone is my least favorite 20th-century invention. I hate telephones, and now you can’t escape them.