Britain, Britain, Britain. You wonder why some people think we are idiots. Here is your answer. Tesco mobile has just released a survey of 4,000 of customers between the ages of 18 and 65 to discover what people believe to be the greatest inventions of all time.

the wheel

Surprisingly at number 1 is the quite logical answer of the timeless and ever practical ‘wheel‘. The Aeroplane is in at number 2, hardly surprising when you remember that we live on a pretty small island with not a lot of interesting places to go. We do like our flights to the beach here in Britain. In at number 3 is the “light bulb’, another intelligent and practical choice. Well done.

iPhone

Number 4 is the Internet, shortly followed by the PC in 5. If that was a Mac instead of a PC it would be a lot more credible ;) . All goes well on the list until we hit number 8, and the 8th best invention of all time as voted by the British public is… the iPhone. Now I have an iPhone, I like the iPhone, but would I rate it as a better invention than the flushing toilet (No.9) or the Combustion Engine (No.10)? A telling sign of the state of British society at number 11, the contraceptive pill. We are not fans of condoms obviously.

At Number 29 we have ‘hot water’. Now I’m sorry but did we really ‘invent’ hot water? We definitely invented the Kettle (No.40) but we can hardly be credited for creating something that occurs naturally in parts of the world. Number 50 was Power Steering. Lazy, Lazy Britain! Expected to see a better result for the Tea Bag (No.54) being out performed by Sky Plus (No.53) and possibly one of the most random things on the list, the ‘Roof’ (No.44).

Facebook made it on the list at number 82, however outperformed by its internet counterpart eBay at number 60. Furniture made it onto the list too, with the bed at 42, chairs at 67, sofas at 71 and everyones favourite, the ‘desk’ rounding up the rear at number 99.

Here is the complete list:

top 100 inventions