IT is the big ideas that change the world, a television advertisement insists - the wheel, electricity, the Internet. Big ideas are all very well, but they do not deal with life's little irritations.

Like: how do you stop your shopping sliding around and getting squashed in the car boot? The answer may finally be here, in the form of Tadcaster inventor Robert Soper's Shopstick.

His creation was one of many showcased in York. We wish him well with his search for a financial support. Now all we need is someone to invent toast that lands butter side up on the kitchen floor.

Updated: 10:37 Friday, January 19, 2001