BBQ Hooker Four-In-One Grilling Tool
The summer is here and as our recessive hunter-gather genes twitch to life, the men folk begin to gather in packs and hunger for raw meat. It must be time for a BBQ.
And what better tool for a manly, marinating man than the BBQ Hooker Four-in-One Grilling Tool? The four-in-one includes the aforementioned hook – a much more macho way to manoeuvre. It incorporates a flat spatula for flipping over burgers, a sharp serrated edge for seeing what’s beneath the charring, and, most vital of all, a bottle-opener.
BBQ Hooker Four-In-One Grilling Tool, $18 (€14), from amazon.com
Kamp-Rite Midget Bushtrekka
This is the perfect way to combine what are, to some, horror vacation options: the cycling and camping holiday. Even the charms of the Bushtrekka might not persuade you otherwise. Designed for a cycling tour, it has an integrated TentCot on top of 180 litres’ storage space. The whole lot is mounted on a trailer that’s only about 25kg empty. Thanks to a rocking frame with pivoting wheelset, the Bushtrekka can absorb very uneven terrain. Ride height can be adjusted and a set of levelling jacks make getting your bed horizontal a cinch.
Kamp-rite Midget Bushtrekka, $900, from kamprite.com
Big Jambox
If you haven’t actually heard one of Jawbone’s legendary portable, wireless speakers strutting its audio stuff, well it can be hard to get a sense of just what a show-off it is. It looks great, it chats up Bluetooth devices effortlessly and then starts pumping out this big sound. The only thing is that it isn’t quite the party kicker-offer that you might need.
Say hello to its big brother. Another exquisite bit of product design, enticingly tactile in an entirely different way from the much-mimicked Apple aesthetic and groovier. Its lineage is unmistakeable: indeed, without some sense of scale, like Father Ted’s Dougal and his faraway cows, you wouldn’t be sure whether it’s the original or the new Big Jambox.
Of course, it still has all the tricks of the original, including a speakerphone that auto-mutes as a call comes in and lets you use it for conference calls or Skype. Big Jambox puts out about 110 decibels, thanks to active neodymium drivers and dual-opposing passive bass radiators. And it’ll work a treat with lots of gaming kit with Bluetooth too. The battery will give 15 hours, fully charged.
Available in Graphite Hex, White Wave and Red Dot. Big Jambox, $300 (€236), from jawbone.com