* It remained essential, and a bafflement to its users, in the Second World War: ‘What is my greatest joy in life, / More precious even than my wife, / So comforting ‘midst all this strife? / My Fullerphone. / How well I love your merry tricks; / Even when your buzzer sticks; / Delighting me with faint key clicks; / Oh Fullerphone…/ Potentiometer, it’s true / I’m not sure what to do with you. / Yet even you add beauty to / My Fullerphone.’ – from R. Mellor, ‘Ode to a Fullerphone’.