How often have you been tired, poorly or horribly hungover, and all you want to do is sit on the sofa with a pizza and feel the remote control in your hand? It’s like a comfort blanket or a dummy for grown-ups. How many hours have you spent pacing round, searching for your beloved remote control, when you could’ve just got up and walked over to the TV and (you might not be aware of this) manually turned over? I love my remote control because it is there for me in sickness and in health.

How frightened do you get when the batteries start to run out? Suddenly, the remote control starts flicking over to other channels like it’s been possessed. In an effort to remain sitting down, you summon up all your technical knowledge, which is taking the back off the remote control and fiddling with the batteries. When that doesn’t work, the only other option is pressing the buttons down really, really hard, whilst pointing it as close to the TV as you can, without physically moving off the sofa. I love my TV remote control because it lets me be as lazy as I want to be.

The remote control isn’t just a device that allows you to turn over, no, it also informs everybody who is head of the house. Men often feel they have more right to it than anybody else, and this power struggle is the main cause of arguments in many homes. There’s nothing worse than sitting down to watch Eastenders when somebody comes in and just turns over to watch the football. This is the one and only negative thing about the TV controller, oh and maybe the fact that that I still can’t get into that size 8 dress I bought ten years ago.

I don’t care about the wheel, or the first computer or even the Internet – I think the remote control is the greatest invention EVER. It’s no surprise that the first remote control, which was attached to a cable and invented in 1950, was called the ‘Lazy Bones’. A wireless version was developed by Eugene Polley in 1955 and was called the ‘Flashmatic’- even the name sounds like a superhero.

We’ve all loved this simple invention, which has fed our need for constant gratification, ever since. It’s such a beautifully, simple device that allows us to sit on our bottoms and channel surf until we are forced to get up and forage for food or go to the toilet. We no longer have to endure boring, condescending adverts or the start of rubbish programmes that haven’t excited us after the first five minutes. We can be couch potatoes or sofa spuds and watch as many different programmes it takes to satisfy our ADHD..

So to Mr Eugene Polley, and all the other inventors who have altered the remote control to satisfy our lazy needs, I salute you because I love my  TV remote control.