I currently have a craving for a kettle. This isn’t (I don’t think) some strange perversion, it’s just our kettle is on its last legs, and the new one I’d like has a couple of features to appeal to the gadget lover. Bu there’s a problem.

I do my best to be green. I recycle and compost and have low energy bulbs and all the rest. I mean, I’ve got a book on surviving global warming coming out on Monday – I know what’s at stake. Yet the very things that appeal about this kettle would make any good green see red.

Really it has three things going for it. It has a built in water filter. That’s not too bad. We have very hard water and need this to avoid having to replace the kettle once a month – and the filters are recyclable. But the other two features are less savoury. It lights up – blue on standby (YES, the S word!) and red when boiling. And it has this amazing feature that keeps the water at 70 C so you can (as I always do) get distracted when you’re making a cup of coffee and not have to wait for ages for it to boil again. I’m sure it’s well insulated, but even so, this sounds eco-horrendous.

I don’t know if I’ll give in, but my cravings suggest an interesting parallel. Perhaps we should take some of the lessons from successful slimming and apply them to attempts to reduce energy consumption. In both cases, those extra joules are naughty but horribly nice. And while the spread of obesity doesn’t hold out the best of hopes, at least the slimming business has been around longer – so maybe there are some real lessons to learn.

(Psst. Want to see a naughty kettle? Check out this site – particularly the JK130. Oooh!)