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Still, you know hi-def is coming, so you feel duty bound to invest, which means upgrading your Sky Box, and that'll cost £300 a year. Just so you can watch something that isn't available yet, on a TV that doesn't work if you sit to one side, and has crummy speakers.

And do you know how long it took two men to install the new set? Six bleeding hours. And when they left, it didn't work. You can't get the Sky listings, and you can stab away at the remote control, but all you'll get is an increasingly complex set of meaningless hieroglyphs on the screen. Tuning? Forget it.

Flatscreen TVs simply do not work as well as the old tube boxes. The technology is racing ahead so quickly that it's not actually functioning properly before it's on the market. It has always been thus, I suppose. Right back at the dawn of TV, customers were offered a choice of Baird's useless spinning-disc system, which cost about the same as a Rolls-Royce, or the US electronic option. Many went the wrong way.

Then there was Betamax, which was sent to an early grave when the US porn industry went with VHS. And then VHS was killed off by DVD. And now, how many of you have bought DVD recorders? Why, when you can have Sky+? A system which seems brilliant, but loses its ability to record if it's wet, dry or if ivy grows over your satellite dish when you're on holiday.

If you look at the march of human progress in the past 30 years, you'll find that for every mobile phone, there are 10 Sinclair C5s. And that for every iPod, there are 100 digital coffee machines which cost £1,000 and break after making two cups.

And so, rather late, I admit, we arrive at the motor industry which could, and should, be a shining beacon for the whole of the electronics world.

Of course, there was a time when the car people were consumed with a need to experiment. If you go down to the Beaulieu motor museum, it's like stepping into a modern television shop today. It's a world ambition running at top speed before the talent can walk.

But then, at some point around 1920, everyone seemed to decide that the fuel should be petrol, that the clutch should be on the left, and that the handbrake should be inside the car. And that, pretty much, has been that for the last 90 years.

Oh, there have been flirtations with diesel, and Wankelling, and the Americans still think the gearlever should be on the steering column, but the essence of the car has remained unchanged.

Today, conspiracy theorists say that the industry's refusal to adopt electric cars is evidence of a deal with the oil companies. But it's no such thing. The car industry doesn't gamble on possibility any more. It'll only play fast and loose with its money, and ours, if something's a real benefit. And electric power isn't.

Just about the only foray into a mad world has been with the gearbox. We had Merc trying to prove seven speeds are better than five, and then wisely not bothering on the new SL. And just about everyone's played around with flappy paddles.

This is flatscreen technology with a clutch. It is the sandwich maker you were given for a wedding present and which you've never used. It looks good, and it sounds impressive when you first explain it to mates over the water cooler, but it's rubbish.

Maserati has just figured that out. They know that the idiot-box spoils the Quattroporte, so they're redesigning the car, ditching the transaxle layout so they can get a proper, tried and tested auto in there.

Sony should think about this. To wonder if going backwards is sometimes the way to make progress.

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