Gold bugs, concrete bog roll holders and frolic-friendly furniture: What IS it with designers?

The weird and wonderful gather at Olympia

Libero

You know the problem with table football: long after you've finished playing, the table is still taking up valuable space in your man cave that could be used for stacking beer and empty pizza boxes

Foosball: Foldable table football, for when your man cave's not quite big enough

"It looks expensive," I commented. "Yes it is," replied Matthias Biehler, as he demonstrated how the table folds up into a slightly more compact package in just a couple of minutes. Well, at 65kg and four feet tall you wouldn't be able to take it as hand luggage on Ryanair even with their newly relaxed restrictions, but you get the point.

The model shown here will set you back £3,800, but if you don't mind slumming it with a steel goal box instead of the laminated wood one, you can save yourself a grand on that price. Stadium lighting is extra: details from flix.eu.

Dimplex

Remember the days when flames were made of fire? For a while they were flickering lights projected onto hollow coals, then they were video. Now they're made of water.

Tim Povey shows off the Dimplex artificial fire

Well, water vapour, which is even better in that it looks a lot more like flame than the wet stuff. Tim Povey of Dimplex (dimplex.co.uk) was happy to show off their latest models, now bigger than ever and double sided – but they'll set you back £390 for the 50cm version, or £695 for the full one metre of fiery delight.

Now incorporating logs lit from within by pulsing LED lights, as well as the sound of crackling timber, these babies can be plumbed into your regular water supply to save having to top them up.

Fake landscapes

It's a pig. Made of foliage. Which would be fake in itself, but the fact that the foliage isn't real foliage makes it doubly fake. And very impressive it is too. If £3,000 for the pig sounds excessive, you can pick up a gloriously realistic fake lemon for just £6.

Unreal: Fake pig, fake foliage

The owner has a website of sorts at fake.com, but doesn't set much store by it: "I think the internet is one of those passing fads," he confided. He has such disdain for the web that he has threatened to close down The Register if I write about his company, so if you do decide get in touch with his company please don't mention that you read about it here.