All inventors, they say, are a little mad. I reckon that only completely sane people are willing to admit they are slightly crazy.

I was on automatic pilot; ideas for gadgets kept coming, fed by a force of energy flowing through me and around me.

The notion that inventors are anorak-wearing crackpots with glasses held together with Sellotape is beguiling but wrong.

But having had your bright, fresh, original idea, the really hard part is turning it into a successful product. That's what takes all the sweat.

That was the Alka-Seltzer moment, the moment when the tablet hits the water and begins to fizz.

Visionaries and dreamers have always been dusted with a little oddity.

Invention isn't some impenetrable brand of magic; anyone can have a go.