I must be an old-fashioned girl, because my instinct when faced with a broken object is to have it mended. But no one fixes kettles any more, or (with few exceptions) toasters, or many videos or even smaller hi-fis. Many come in impenetrable sealed units, parts are unavailable and it wasn’t even worth the cost of labour to fix my £120 Dualit kettle.

Better to chuck it away, buy a spanking new one. You might think we’d gain pleasure from perpetually restocking our homes with the latest stuff. Not so, according to the Worldwatch Institute, whose annual State of the World report was published this week. It found that while Americans have more cars, luxury goods and bigger houses, they were no happier than in 1957 when they were half as wealthy.

For the 1950s consumer, domestic machines were shiny, modern miracles, eliminating drudgery, freeing lives for leisure. There was pride in ownership. But now a dishwasher or fridge is designed to last seven years. A washing machine will probably drop dead at three if heavily used.

Built-in obsolescence has killed our pleasure in the objects around us. They are mere domestic whores, good for a couple of shags before we cast them out and get a younger, more fanciable model. A sense of impermanence and worthlessness leaches from last year’s busted DVD player into our very souls.

But what manufacturer today would limit the number of units he shifts by giving his products a lifetime guarantee? And why make thing repairable when a Chinese assembly worker is far cheaper than a Catford repair man.

Needless to say, it’s screwing the environment. In Britain, discarded electrical goods create around a million tonnes of waste each year, a figure set to double by 2010. And manufacturers aren’t even obliged to make their flimsy ephemera easy to recycle: 90 per cent of electrical waste is burnt or buried. Moreover, there is no legislation to force manufacturers to increase the expected lives of their products.

I am a lazy green — washable nappies, I think not — but surely there is a confluence of interest here between sustainability and our happiness. I cannot believe sock-washing-ology or dinner plate-sparklification will ever be significantly furthered. There have been no advances in cake-mixing science since my mother bought her Kenwood Chef in the year of my birth. It still does as good a job as my food mixer, which I will soon chuck away — motor unit and all — because the plastic bowl is cracked and replacements are unobtainable.

A thousand fancy functions are there to persuade us to upgrade from Model I to Model II, but does anyone use more than one setting on their washing machine? Bring back the 1920s motto of the very first electrical machines: “Simply switch on.” Today, with 100-page manuals, there’s nothing simple about it.

I’m sure many people, like me, would pay more for straightforward, well-designed, reliable and repairable domestic goods. Imagine never having to pore through Which? magazine again or drag your old fridge to the tip. Or trudge round the John Lewis basement or the lugubrious electronics showrooms of Tottenham Court Road. It would add to the sum of world happiness if a toaster was for life, not just for Christmas.

On second thoughts...

NOT THAT I’M eco-warrior enough to forgo my lovely white goods altogether. If you need affirmation that modern life is not rubbish, but completely marvellous, check out the new movies Cold Mountain and Girl With a Peal Earring.

In the first, a shivering 1860s Nicole Kidman rootling around in a winter field for sustenance or Renée Zellweger pulling off a cockerel’s head is enough to make you think fondly of central heating and supermarkets.

And in Pearl Earring, Scarlett Johansson as a beleaguered 17th-century maid must wash clothes with filthy river water, a rock and endless toil. After the horrible master’s son smears mud on her drying sheets I was inwardly cheering when she thumped him.

See how they run

I TRIED TO IGNORE the mice until my son said he woke to see one pushing a mouldy lollipop into a hole in his bedroom wall. My mother-in-law bought me a plug-in “Attack Wave Pestrepeller” which sends out bad vibes to the mice but has had no discernible effect except freaking out our gerbils. And, since this device merely encourages the mice to clear out and my m-in-l lives next door, she will have to buy her own Pestrepeller to drive them back to us.

So every morning I come downstairs to bug-eyed corpses snared in Tom and Jerry-style traps. My elder son has insisted we invest in an expensive device which catches them alive. “Are you going to let them go in the park?” I ask, thinking I’ve bred Francis of Assisi. “No,” says young master vivisector. “I’m using them for experiments.”

The sleep of reason

THE REALITY TV show Shattered has suffered widespread abuse. But I found no more relaxing end to an evening than watching a bunch of sleep-deprived young people try to break dance. What could make you relish the dive into the duvet more than seeing pretty-boy Chris bite his hands to stay awake while a kindly granny read him The Little Bear Who Could? Considering the contestants have barely had a wink for a week, they are admirably kind and supportive and the one remaining female contestant, Claire, is dewy fresh and coherent even at 4am. If I don’t clock up a nightly eight hours I’m a short-fused, evil shrew.

The only false note was when muscley Dean declared, apropos of nothing: “I like to f***.” The commentary announced: “Sleeplessness can stimulate the libido.” Hmm. Tell that to parents of newborn babies.

janice.turner@thetimes.co.uk

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