I HAVE seen the future and it looks like a pineapple.

I am very excited about the latest development in 'green' housing.

The Eco-Pod may look like a darker version of the pineapple inhabited by Spongebob Squarepants, but it looks like a design classic of the future.

It is only four metres across, but has solar panels, a wind turbine, underfloor heating, water recycling and an odourless lavatory.

The kitchen, bathroom, and dining room are downstairs, while there is a bedroom upstairs with a Perspex roof through which you can watch the stars.

It is tiled with tiles made from recycled car tyres outside, looking rather like an Easter egg (probably something which subliminally attracts me to it), and costs £45,000.

Designer Aidan Quinn, from Manchester, has been living in his: "It is designed for one or two people to live in and I love living here. You feel very close to things and the shape makes it a very comfortable space."

My generation, brought up on space flights, man's first steps on the moon and sci-fi, is going to love it.

It might just make up for some of the disappointment we all feel that we're not travelling to work by rocket shoes now it's the 21st Century.

* The Eco-Pod was on display at the National Homebuilding and Renovating Show at the NEC in Birmingham last week. Google it on the internet to check it out and see a picture.

NOT all inventions are good things, though.

I told you last week that sat navs are the work of the devil...and I was proved right yet again.

Pity the poor children of Orchard Lea School in Hampshire who were meant to go on a day out to the attractive Hampton Court Place in Surrey.

Their coach driver's sat nav sent him instead to Hampton Court alley in Islington, north London.

Again I wonder why so many people have a brain by-pass and total sucking out of common sense with these machines.

Check out the difference - Hampton Court Palace, big, Tudor thing with towers and large gardens nowhere near north London; Islington, miles away, home of the chattering classes, grey brick buildings and expensive coffee houses.

Parent Barrie Cross said: "Why didn't they just check on a map?"

The AA said: "If you tap rubbish into these machines, you get rubbish out. Motorists are following these systems like robots."

Quite. Ban 'em.

AND finally...

IF YOU think till death us do part is scary enough, imagine the horror of women in China seeing a single man's internet advert for a woman to share his tomb after death.

"I don't want a relationship with her," the man, calling himself Mr Li, said.

"I just want to find someone to share the lonely tomb."

Just as well, as such a relationship might be somewhat limited.