What’s the most useless, pointless, resource-wasting consumer gadget that you
have seen, bought or been given in the past 12 months? That’s the question
at the heart of the first annual Landfill
prize, which has
already attracted a host of nominations, including automatic cucumber
peelers, hi-spec plug-in air fresheners and a £150 electric toothbrush.
Today’s consumer society has become astonishingly adept at inventing
pointless, hopeless, resource-sucking gizmos, but let’s not pretend we have
a monopoly on this. Since the Victorian era, some of humankind’s most
creative brains have kept themselves busy creating answers for needs that
didn’t exist and solutions that are more cumbersome than the problems they
promised to tackle. To inspire nominations for the Landfill Prize, here’s
our list of the 19th and 20th centurys’ most pathetic, unnecessary and
patently daft inventions.
1. The combined plow and gun
Patent no 35600, issued 1862
Rather than turn your sword into a ploughshare, why not combine your plough
with a medium-sized artillery piece? It’s bound to be so much more effective
than shouting “get orf moi land” at errant ramblers. Or, as the American
inventor claimed, “Its utility is unquestionable, especially when used in
border localities, subject to savage feuds and guerrilla warfare. In times
of danger may be used in the field, ready charged with its deadly missiles
of ball or grape. The share serves to anchor it firmly in the ground and
enables it to resist the recoil, while the hand levers furnish convenient
means of giving it the proper direction.” Why don’t the perpetually
bickering Archers have one?
2. Device for waking persons from sleep
Patent no 256265, issued 1882
Sometimes, an alarm clock just isn’t quite enough for rousing heavy sleepers
to face the day. So why not hang an array of weights on a frame above the
snoozer’s head and, with the help of clockwork machinery, drop them upon
their head until they wake? “When they fall it will strike a light blow,
sufficient to awaken the sleeper, but not heavy enough to cause pain,”
assures the inventor. Surely it’s just bound to cause stubborn sleepers
simply to pull the duvet over their heads.
3. Balloon propelled by eagles or vultures
Patent no 863087, issued 1887
First, catch your eagle or vulture. Then attach the large bird to a balloon
cupola, point its beak in desired direction, then sit back, relax and enjoy
the in-flight snacks and movie. There’s a kind of simple genius to this
idea, but a few potential snags make themselves apparent. Yes, there will be
protests by animal lovers, but perhaps more pertinent is the fact that large
birds of prey or carrion are notoriously uncooperative in matters of
providing predictable and directable propulsion. Oh, and won’t they peck
holes in the balloon?
4. Method of preserving the dead
Patent no 748284, issued 1903
Having trouble finding a suitable memorial for your loved one? How about
having them permanently encased in glass? Herkimer J. Karkowski, the New
Yorker who devised this tidy and decorative form of body-disposal seems to
have been rather less squeamish than the average mourner. He believed that
bereaved people would love nothing more than seeing their departed
hermetically encased within a block of transparent glass, and thus
“maintained for an indefinite period in a perfect and lifelike condition”.
If an entire glass-encased relative might take up too much parlour-space,
Karkowski suggested just having their head done. An attractive adornment to
any mantelpiece. Or a handy doorstop? Glazed looks all round.
5. Moustache and lip guards
Patent no GB191127119, issued 1912
Oh the Edwardians and their moustaches: the damned hairy things seemed to be
ever getting in the way, catching fire or becoming unattractively damp and
potentially infected. To prevent this last problem, Fritz Baudisch filed a
British patent to stop beards and moustaches getting moistened while
drinking. His gadget consisted simply of a protective antiseptic paper disk
that could be adapted to be folded over the edge of any drinking-vessel.
Then, of course, it got damp and filled the toper’s facial hair with papier
mache. Drat.
