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My invention

When I run business creativity training sessions the participants often come up with great product ideas, which I encourage them to go and do something with. I came up with an invention the other morning which I am giving to the world - feel free to go out and make your fortune with this.

After my stint at the Edinburgh Science Festival I was having breakfast at the hotel before heading off through the snow, rain and howling winds (come on, it was Scotland) to get to the train.

It was a good breakfast, though it did suffer from some of the food snobbery issues I have highlighted previously (they did allow me brown sauce, though). But here's the thing. The toast, as it almost always is in such circumstances, didn't live up to the rest of the meal.

They brought a basket of toast, which then sat on the table through the meal. The trouble is, you need to butter toast when it is piping hot. It's only then that the butter sinks invitingly into the bread. Leave it to cool for more than 30 seconds before buttering and it is ruined.

So here's the invention. A battery-powered table top toaster. I'm sure with modern batteries you could get enough oomph for one meal into a self-contained unit. And that way, the diner can just pop in a slice as and when they want it, getting the perfect toast at their table. Of course they'd sell elsewhere as well, but any decent restaurant serving breakfast would need one per table.

Anyone care to take up the challenge?

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