SCIENTISTS say they can now make clothes that clean themselves, windows that never mist up and kitchen counters that repel germs.

This may sound like Utopia but creating a “self-cleaning” coating that can be sprayed onto almost any material is likely to make us even lazier and more sedentary.

Washing, cleaning and doing housework may be a bind but it does provide vital exercise in lives too often devoid of real movement. We already have no problem in finding reasons for not cracking on with household jobs, we don’t need the valid excuse “forget the cleaning – they never get dirty.”