Inventor

Behind desks, inventors are the most important people in the world. Without inventors we would have nothing: no telly, mobile phones or eggs. We wouldn’t even have the word ‘inventors’. That’s just one example of how important they are.

Many inventors, especially the clever ones, are geniuses. Thomas Edison, inventor of both the light bulb and teletext, claimed that genius was 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration. This was because he was overweight and dressed too warmly during the summer months. Some of the thinner inventors like Alexander Fleming and Papa Nurofen never sweated a drop.

Inventing is big business, big business itself being a clever invention of the late 1970s. However, the life of an inventor can be solitary, with days spent sitting on children’s swings, or on the edges of walls, looking irritable. At such times, it would be ill-advised to challenge the pensive inventor to a game of Swingball. Still, occasionally inventors may benefit from interacting with other people:

“Dad, why do our wheels have to be square? Couldn’t they just be another shape…?”

“Ulrika!!! I’ve got it!!”

The wheel was the second most important invention of the twentieth century, behind genetically engineered mice with ears on their backs.

It is often true that for something good to be invented, people and animals have to suffer the most extreme pain imaginable. The creator of cat’s eyes used real cats in his prototype; one night in late 1943 he stole six of his neighbours’ moggies, gouged their eyes out with apple corers and inserted them into the roads. Likewise, fifteen of the Wright brothers died in airplane accidents, many of which took place at double speed and in black and white.

It is the simplest ideas that make the best inventions. Examples of these are shoes, cups and girlfriends. Other inventions are so complicated that they never work, like World Peace. Some of mankind’s most worthwhile inventions came about by pure chance. When Alvin Yapp devised a machine to explode hamsters in, it was only by accident that his brother Brian christened it ‘the microwave’ and used it to reheat his tea. Likewise, Peter Jarlsberg’s creation of the Hovercraft was only to make his neighbour, Alan Budge, sick on Channel crossings (Alan had been having an affair with Peter’s young wife Sue).

The most famous inventor of all time is God. God invented all inventors and has a patent in heaven. God has purple patches, most notably the dawn of creation, but has been quiet of late.