USEFUL
1. Potato peelers (the kind in the picture). I frequently throw these away with the peelings, but always replace them. They are the best. And the pointy bit at the end makes an excellent screwdriver for small domestic screwing jobs (now now).
2. Washing machines. For those who are too young ever to have had to hand-wash a pair of jeans, this may seem an odd choice. But trust me. The washing machine is the best thing since women got the vote.
3. Bees.
4. Selotape.
5. Kitchen towels (the paper ones).
6. My very elderly Ford Ka. It looks a sight, is covered with moss and full of straw and clutter - a cross between a teenager's bedroom and a stable - but it has never let me down. Titch hates it, and wants me to park it down the road away from the stable, because he says it shows him up in front of his friends.
7. Computers.
8. Jeans (but only if you have a washing machine. See above).
USELESS
1. Personalised gear stick covers. In fact, anything personalised (this excludes name tapes for children).
2. Wasps.
3. The female condom. A paper bag would be of more use.
4. The contraption of pullies which promised me a flatter tummy and bottom if I could unravel it and get my feet and hands into the stirrups and do interesting exercises on the floor. I couldn't.
5. Small wooden trolleys to wheel your houseplants around the house (yes. There really are such things).
6. Me, trying to understand anything to do with computers (but I have to. See no.7 above).
7. Kiwi fruit.
8. Most of the items in those little bags of free cosmetics you sometimes get from Boots: bright orange lipstick, enough moisuriser to dampen one toe, a tiny pot of something shiny that could be for any part of your anatomy, and is usually blue. That kind of thing.
