A weekly guide to essential items

Your single most annoying relative telephones

Your single most annoying relative telephones. Oh no - he's coming on business and wants to stay in your house (probably so he can claim the hotel bill from his company anyway then spend it on his beer mat collection or something). He insists he just wants to stay Thursday night, but you suspect that once he is in, he'll crash for the weekend. If you knew his true intentions, you could make up an excuse - but you don't want to risk causing tension within the family if he really is only staying one night.Now you can say goodbye to that are-they-lying misery, with the new Truth Quest Telephone. Basically, it's a telephone with a built-in lie-detector. According to retailers, special circuitry analyses every word of your phone conversations, searching for tell-tale voice modulations that indicate stress and a lack of truthfulness. You just keep an eye on the little light above the keypad - green is good, yellow means caution and red spells danger.Try it out on your so-called friends, your allegedly-faithful spouse, your oh-so-loving family, your insurance broker - you might find out what a pack of liars they are, then die wise but lonely!The Truth Quest Telephone is available from The Sharper Image in various US cities and on the Internet - www.sharperimage.com - at a price of $129 (around £85.