Monty Python Foot Domestic Compactor

A sleek, white, minimalist flat overlooks the Thames. The living room - a spacious haven of silence where select pieces of bespoke furniture appear to float above the gleaming parquet. Off the living room, the kitchen - a mass of reflections of brushed steel in glass and glass in brushed steel. In the corner of the kitchen stands a toughened glass pillar, three foot high, hollow, and the shape of a foot in cross-section. It ticks gently like a quiet long case clock.

A slender girl in a white dress pads in from the living room in bare feet and carelessly tosses a pile of paper shreddings into the container, which settle in the bottom. She returns to the living room and lies back in a capacious sofa with a notepad and pen.

Over a while the ticking gently increases until at last it breaks into her consciousness. She looks at her Cartier watch - ten seconds to four. The ticking gets louder quickly: tick... tock... Tick... Tock...T ICK... TOCK... BONNNNNGGGGG!!! A gong shakes the building and several persian cats flee for cover. Swiftly the Monty Python Foot descends from the ceiling on a hydraulic ram, slides inside the glass container and crushes down the paper shreddings into a flat cake of paper before retreating back into the ceiling.

As the gong fades, she can just hear the first faint ticks of the next hour.