Washing machine 2.0

The long-suffering user of the conventional front loading washing machine or tumble dryer is currently required to grovel down to the level of the door in order to drag the payload in and out. This requires adopting a sinew-stretching crouch posture, bending uncomfortably, or bone-crunching kneeling perhaps even resulting in scuffing of one's shoes.

Let me ask you, dear halfbaker, whether you have ever discovered upon emptying the freshly washed laundry still persistently clinging to the wall of the drum a black sock amidst your by now slightly off-white pillow cases and sheets?

My washing machine will incorporate a solid frame. The drum and motor will be mounted on another sub-frame suspended from it. I shall press a discrete button on the washer, its remote control or my smartring. Then, a discreet indicator lamp will flash seductively whilst, by means of a four-bar linkage mechanism and an electric drive, the inner body of the washer will swivel softly outwards, forwards towards me and upwards to a position with the drum entrance tilted at an inclined angle slightly below horizontal with the door invitingly agape. This will permit me to investigate the drum interior and to confirm the absence of retained items before tipping the minging contents of my washing basket into the drum together with any detergent, sodium bicarbonate, fabric conditioner, dye or colour-catcher.

After having checked that the appropriate wash program is selected I will press the 'Start' button. Smugly, I will watch the washer drive back down to its initial, conventional horizontal orientation. There will be a reassuring click sound as the servo bolt locks the inner frame to the outer before the tumble motor starts. As usual, dead weights are attached to the drum in order to provide vibration damping during the spin cycle.

You are no doubt ahead of me by now. Upon completion it would only remain to select 'Discharge'. The mechanism will obligingly lift the active parts of the washer outwards and upwards but this time tilt the front of the drum downwards. Gravity shall then assist me to extract the contents and deposit them into the receiving basket positioned just below the drum. I will struggle to recall memories of the times when washing machines used to be ridiculously fixed, inanimate and desperately difficult to use, another yarn with which to amuse my grandchildren regarding the grim obstacles we would have had to put up with in the primitive, distant past.

Hands up: who wants one?