If you think listening to your child practise his or her recorder was as painful as it gets in the home musical stakes, think again. Because you obviously were never treated to the "unique" sound of the Stylophone.

I had one back in the Seventies and regularly tortured my family with the squeals that emitted by touching the metal keys with the stylus. And I wasn't alone. Bearded Aussie, Rolf Harris, somehow made the Stylophone a "must have" in homes the length and breadth of Britain and it's up there with the Space Hopper and the Chopper bike as far as Seventies icons go.

Believe it or not, the likes of David Bowie, Pulp, Marilyn Manson and Kraftwerk have all used Stylophones on recordings - which naturally leaves me wondering just how far I would have gone in the music business had I persevered with my own.

Equally unbelievable is the fact that they have started making the Stylophone again!

It's almost identical to the original, but comes with a couple of new sounds, a jack so that you can plug in your MP3 player and play along to your favourite tunes, and something that probably contributed the most to the Stylophone's downfall - a volume control (the original didn't have one!).

Firebox are flogging them for £14.95 a go.

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