I’m happy to become Rechargeable Man

THE nation saw its prime minister visiting a new UK battery plant this week and – despite very much not being a fan of Boris’s relentless, Duracell-powered quest for an easy soundbite – I thought it exactly the right kind of place in which a leading politician should be seen at present.

Because, like millions of others, I am increasingly convinced that the humble battery is the answer to just about everything. And I don’t just mean the big hope that it will help remedy the kind of global warming so tragically evidenced in Europe this week. Alongside that, there’s the battery’s potential to change our everyday lives.

My evangelical zeal came of age this week when our new batterypowered lawnmower arrived. With its two 18-volt rechargeables and wide-cut, it is quite simply the best lawnmower I’ve ever owned. One hot day this week when you could actually see grass growing in the warm humid conditions after the rain, I managed to mow our entire large, sloping and rather fiddly garden in the 35 minutes before the machine needed recharging. It used to take the best of two back-breaking hours with the heavy, stubborn, often difficult-to-start petrol model that eventually died a rusting death a fortnight ago.

Garden maintenance at Hesp Towers has now become completely battery-powered. There’s the extendable hedge-trimmer, the new super-lightweight strimmer and the rather frightening mini-chainsaw.

I hasten to add that, unlike certain neighbours in our valley, we do not “maintain” our garden to within an inch of its life. We’re happy to “let nature in” and I am attempting to establish a swathe of meandering wild-flower meadow through our humble half-acre.

So there’s plenty of time for our battery implements to recharge. And while they’re at it, let me say how pleasing it is to see Monty Don and his colleagues referring, increasingly, to the concept of “gardening with nature” on the BBC’s excellent Gardeners’ World. I’d echo the sentiment by beseeching all those wildlife-loathers out there who own his-andher-strimmers and who use them to nuke their gardens on a daily basis, to please give nature a break.

Anyway, while our four not-exactly-overworked garden implements were recharging this week, I went indoors to escape the humid semitropical heat and realised that there was a whole bunch of other stuff relying on battery power at Hesp Towers.

There are seven items, indeed, on the desk in front of me – ie, iPhone, iPad, portable house phone, computer keyboard, digital voice recorder, computer mouse and a nifty little portable speaker.

In fact, there’s rechargeable stuff everywhere. Even in the bathroom I have not one, but two battery-powered implements to help clean my teeth. At this point, I realise there’ll be hair-shirt wearing luddites who will point out that a great many things were, until recently, carried out by human elbow grease alone.

Yes... but no thanks. I am one of the few people I know who owns an old-fashioned scythe and a sickle and who uses them on a regular basis – but would I throw out my four garden gizmos and return to a reliance on the pure cut and thrust of muscle power? Not on your Nelly!

Moreover, if I go back indoors, the dentist has advised me to use an electric toothbrush and one of the new efficient battery-powered water flossers. Result? Best dental hygiene ever.

And would I prefer 20 minutes of cutthroat shaving with a medieval and often blood-inducing blade, to the quick, safe and comfortable 120 seconds it takes using my rechargeable wet-shaver? What do you think?

No. We have entered the Age of the Battery and I, for one, am all for it.

They’ll undoubtedly invent some other way of powering our lives one day, but in the meantime I am happy to become Rechargeable Man, especially when the sun is shining and the solar panels on our roof seem to take care of repowering things without adding a penny to the electricity bill.

So would I now take that biggest rechargeable step and purchase an electric car? Yes I would – especially after being given a lift in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s rather swish electric 4x4 the other day. Alas, the pennies saved on our solar-powered electricity bill have nowhere near accumulated enough to purchase such a vehicle, and may never do so.

I’ll tell you what I do wish, though... The hotter moments this week will have seen a lot of people flagging – to the extent that I wished they’d invent some way of recharging the human body.

I have lived in hot countries and so know a bit about surviving heatwaves, but have often heard it said you lose the ability to cope with high temperatures as you get older. Now it seems I am reaching that age.

I’d pay twice the price of a posh electric 4x4 for a little device into which a chap could stick his big toe and, within minutes, feel it refreshing and rejuvenating his weary and half-boiled body.

My evangelical zeal came of age this week when our new battery-powered lawnmower arrived