A wifi solution for compulsive kettle-watchers everywhere...

Given that standing by a kettle appears to prolong the boiling process, NAMs in a hurry can now switch on en route to the bathroom via the world's first wifi kettle, triggered from an iPhone anywhere in the home.

Available from Firebox, four different temperature settings mean it can be programmed appropriately for the drink of choice – 80C for a green tea or 95C for a coffee, for instance. Once boiled, a message on your smartphone will ask you if you are ready or would prefer to keep the water warm for a while....

Having thus cracked the 'watched kettle never boils' problem, the bonus time thus created could then usefully be deployed pondering on the origins and literal meanings of other, albeit violent everyday expressions like shooting ourselves in the foot, cutting off our noses, breaking each other’s legs for good luck, shooting messengers, and stabbing friends in the back. We’d be too hurt to dig our own literal graves. We’d be killing birds with stones, breaking camels’ backs, and beating dead horses. Dogs would be eating other dogs, cats would be getting skinned...however, in unprecedented times...?

Finally, a possible tip for NAMs needing to lend emphasis to a contact-report re making a hasty retreat from the buyer's office:

Describing the experience in terms of “Balls to the wall”, optimises a phrase that refers to military pilots accelerating rapidly, thrusting the ball-shaped grip of the throttle lever to the panel firewall, thus gaining full speed.

Hopefully, this may distract the reader's attention sufficiently from the fact that the negotiating session had a less than satisfactory outcome...