I don’t wish to come across as paranoid, but I think our domestic appliances are conspiring against my carer and me.

It all began when we replaced the fridge-freezer. The addition to our white goods collection is bright scarlet, and right from the start it’s been a bolshie blighter.
So furious was it at being dragged into our kitchen that it spitefully ripped the vinyl, and ever since it’s been turning our hitherto compliant appliances against us.

The winter of discontent began when the cooker and the microwave simultaneously went on the blink. The extractor fan has been on strike for longer than Southern Rail employees.

We nipped that one in the bud and booted them towards the recycling centre faster than Theresa May blasted George Osborne to the backbenches.

Soon the John Lewis and Currys vans were heading in our direction with replacements.

But little did we know that while all this was going on, the dishwasher was sneakily dripping water under what was left of the vinyl, as reported recently, necessitating my pulling the entire kitchen apart and relaying the floor.

The dishwasher responded by refusing to work at all, but I, and my new-found DIY friend YouTube, soon sorted that one out.
Next it was the washing machine. One of those sticky- out things inside the drum came away without warning, rendering it useless.

I was hoping that Graham from YouTube, in his smart green overalls and clutching a crosshead screwdriver, might have a simple answer to this one. No such luck.
These drum paddles, as I now know they are called, are fastened – would you believe it – from the inaccessible side of the drum.

o that although all you need to re-attach them is a couple of screws, you can’t get to where the screws are inserted. Unless you take the whole drum out, and that’s above even Graham’s skill levels.
So now we have a new washing machine as well, with so much technology that you need a degree in physics to understand it.

Now the machines can synchronise their various devices via their clocks and all take action together

One thing I have noticed about all these new appliances is that they all have a clock. If you add them all up, including the one on my mobile phone, my wrist watch and the old- fashioned clock on the wall, there are eight time pieces in our kitchen.

And I have heard that modern appliances are linked to the internet. That’s a mistake for a start. Communication is power. Now they can organise.

Until now we’ve only had to contend with wild-cat industrial action. But now the machines can synchronise their various devices via their clocks and all take action together, leaving us unable to cook, freeze, wash or wash up, and sending my carer one step closer towards insanity.

Worse yet, now they are on the internet, whole swathes of appliances right across the country might down digitals together. Most of us have completely forgotten how to wash by hand, many no longer know how to wash dishes without fully programmed mechanical assistance… as for cooking on a solid-fuel stove, well, that skill went out years ago.
And remember, it’s the worldwide web we are talking about. Domestic appliance rebellion could spread across the planet. Civilisation itself might be doomed.
Makes Brexit seem hardly worth worrying about.