A feature in today’s daily mail defends supposedly useless 70s gadgets such as the Sodastream, Fondue sets and the Goblin Teasmade. (They are in a list of a top 20, although the site the article refers to isn’t properly live yet).

I first encountered a Teasmade in a small hotel in the late 70’s when I was installing phone systems around the country. I don’t remember which specific hotel but it may have been one rather unusual one I stayed in at Cannock Chase. It only had about six rooms but the reception had more than thirty keys on the board. (It must have been every cupboard & padlock in the place). The rooms were fairly normal but what was unusual was the bathroom- it was a large room with the bath in the centre & with thick shagpile carpet. (The bedrooms themselves weren’t en-suite).

When I first encountered the Teasmade it was curiousity that made me fill it and set it up. It was basically a glorified alarm clock but instead of sounding an alarm, it boiled a metal kettle instead. The kettle bit was sealed so that once it reached boiling point, the water squirted out under pressure into a ceramic teapot. The kettle was on a sprung platform that raised up as the water transferred from the kettle to the teapot, at which point a changeover switch would operate, the light would come on and the buzzer would sound.

I actually found it a pleasant way to be woken up as it would would progressively get noisier over several minutes, although the buzzer was a bit severe. After encountering another one somewhere else and repeatingt he process, I eventually noticed one in Coventry Exchange & Mart, a large 2nd hand shop in town, & bought it for a song.

I vaguely have memories of having a clock radio version later (probably after the local Radio Station started, Mercia Sound), although as I had a semi-live-in girlfriend by then, I found nicer ways to be woken up!

The other useless object celebrated was the Sodastream, a device for carbonating water. Everything the Daily Mail says about it is true- they didn’t make enough pop as the bottles were too small, the concentrates didn’t taste very nice, the bubbles weren’t as good as real pop, they got messy & sticky, the CO2 bottles themselves were quite expensive and you had to take your old one in with you. Overall they were rather Cak, but good fun for a kid.

(The post title is a possible urban myth that Goblin wanted to use that slogan for an annual promotion but they were told that it would break advertising rules)