Flylite Small Cabin Trolley BagAs restrictive as Aer Lingus's and Ryanair's carry-on baggage regulations are, a couple of airlines have gone even smaller, including Aer Arann and Thomas Cook. They now specify a positively titchy 43x28x20cm-sized bag as cabin luggage. That's something with the dimensions of a fat laptop case – and about half the space of most carry-ons.
Step in lightweight luggage specialist Flylite, with its Small Cabin Bag which is just about as efficient a solution as you’ll find. As with all of Flylite’s range, the weight has been pared to under 1.5kg and yet it’s a fully functioning, luggage-handler tough wheelie.
So you can still cram a weekend away into your cabin bag while maintaining some luggage dignity – it certainly beats trying your kid’s animal-shaped Trunki for a couple of overnights. In fact, that’d be too big.
Cost£40 (€47), from flylite.uk.com
ThermaJockThis may seem like a joke. No doubt there's been sniggering at the back of the class. Some ladies may have already laughed out loud.
But yes, this gadget’s USP (unique selling proposition in marketing guff) is signalled in its name. This is a niche thermal insulation device that would once have been called a willy-warmer. Now it’s a ThermaJock. A hotsock.
It’s a Polartec fleece sockette with a pair of adjustable straps to insulate a man’s man against the cold during winter running, skiing or other chilly outdoor activities. Basically, a whole world of chaffing opportunities. One size fits all.
(By the way, there’s an image on ThermaJock’s homepage with the usual “click to enlarge” link below it: that juxtaposition can’t but brighten your day.)
Cost$14.99 (€11), from thermajock.com
Recon MOD In-GooglesDisplay I'm afraid I've gone a little tautological there as MOD stands for Micro Optics Display. It's a real-time GPS-linked data display which fits inside ski goggles and delivers a raft of info, such as your speed, altitude, distance-travelled and so on to a little full-colour screen.
The fact that the screen, micro as it might be, is just a couple of centimetres from your eyeball, makes it very widescreen. It’s the sort of gizmo you’d have seen in a sci-fi movie years ago.
But now you can just buy the kit and tool-up for the slopes with a personal dashboard of data. Recon has two versions: the standard MOD, and MOD Live, which locks up with an Android smartphone to let you text on the piste, call up MP3 playlists and generally gives you a goggle view of your mobile.
It also features a sort of social stalker function to let you track your buddies on the slopes. Only fits particular goggles from Uvex, Alpina, Zeal and Bricko.
CostMOD $299.99 (€221), MOD Live $399 (€295), from reconinstruments.com
Blacktop 360 Grill FryerMen, if you've ever thought that those little portable barbecue, foil trays weren't really manly enough to let you express your repressed fire-maker, get a load of this.
The Blacktop 360 Grill Fryer is a portable, all-in-one deep fry, grill and griddle which will let you carbonise to your heart’s content. As the brochure says, “452 square inches of porcelain-coated cooking space. 24,000 BTUs total cooking power”.
That engineering sure does taste good. And if all that wasn’t enough, Blacktop has a video clip on its site of a bunch of gals in bikinis cutting loose on an old school barbecue with assorted AK47s and other hardware. I kid you not.
Cost$250 (€185), from amazon.com