Kitchen gadgets review: Swan Vintage Teasmade – liquid is sluicing in the direction of my head

What?

Swan Vintage Teasmade (£49.99, Argos). Alarm-rigged, immersion-heated tank plumbed into adjoining chamber. When activated, steam pressure forces boiling liquid via duct into a positioned jug.

Why?

Apparently, Jeremy Corbyn wants to take us back to the seven teas, which sounds magical and refreshing.

Well?

Brexit negotiations week! In step with our politics, the column is going retro this week: in a way no one asked for or understands but it’s happening now, so the main thing is to avoid dousing ourselves in boiling water. Bedside tea makers with combined alarm clocks, as popularised by Goblin, had their heyday 50 years ago; unfathomably, they still exist. (A goblin maid, squatting by your headboard? Was the past entirely full of nightmares?) This model is by Swan – whose parent company bought Goblin out in 1973, mergers and acquisitions fans – and features a Dalí-esque elongated clockface, ceramic jug and plastic everything else. I can’t help but feel there’s something a bit “one is the loneliest number” about teasmades. They are ineffably depressing, like a school reunion. Just opening the box I’m presented with the “Limescale Guide to Great Britain”, a large map printed right on to the cardboard, swathed red and yellow like an apocalyptic BBC News graphic. I position the device next to my bed, fill the tank with water and set the alarm for 6.30am, when I start my day. (OK it isn’t, but it’s 6.30am somewhere. Salvador, I think.) I’m woken by turbulence and shrill peeping, liquid sluicing through the mechanism and hole in the open side of the device, in the direction of my head. Breakfast in bed is nice, but boiling chai up the pillow is something else. Despite my terror, the liquid somehow all falls in the jug, and brews a solid cuppa. But why not just go to the kitchen? Is this aimed at the elderly, or bedbound? But … where do they keep the milk? Mini-fridge? Maybe it’s aimed at 80s-style investment bankers who require a black coffee in their first four seconds of consciousness, before charging out the door to aggressively merge and acquire things. Nostalgia confuses me. While not actively bad, I wouldn’t keep a Goblin-Swan at home any more than invest in a hat rack or antimacassars. Time for this maid to leave domestic service.

Redeeming features?

I’m impressed it hasn’t mutilated me, but that’s a low bar for an appliance.

Counter, drawer, back of the cupboard?

Dustbin of history. 2/5