His choice for stylish cleaners? Well if you want 1940s glamour, you should opt for the Oreck XL4 Upright vacuum clearer with Multi-Vac Canister. Not only does it boast chic, retro styling, but it is half the weight of a conventional model and has a C-shaped handle, which reduces stress on your arm, wrist and back (personally I think the best way to avoid this stress is to get someone else to do the housework but if that’s not an option this is the next best thing). Its bristles are shaped in a double helix (this must be the science part), which means they can lift up embedded dirt from your carpet, and sweep hard floors without scratching them. The bag features a Saniseal system, whch closes the bag as you remove it, so no more nasty accidents with bags full of fluff and dust. The price for this glamorous model? £295

Contemporary domestic goddesses (and gods) should opt for the Sebo Airbelt D2 Storm Cylinder vacuum cleaner, which has been designed in conjunction with the German Design Council. It has a Turbofan motor, which uses turbine technology to get the best results. It also has ‘parking’ and ‘carrying ‘ slots to make storage simple, and its on/off button can also alter the power levels. All this contemporary coolness for £229, exclusively at John Lewis.

If you prefer the futurist approach – and hate pushing a vacuum across the floors – opt for the i-Robot Roomba 555 vacuum cleaner, which can cover up to four rooms on a single charge, and is able to find its way into hard to reach areas such as under furniture and around wall edges. You can preset it to clean while you are out, and it also has anti-tangle technology so get out of cord tangles and tassels. When it’s done, it heads back to its home base to recharge – all for the princely sum of £349.

Finally, if you’re a city slicker, the Dyson DC35 Multi Floor vacuum cleaner is likely to be more your style. This is a lightweight cordless cleaner, ideal for those with little in the way of storage space. It has a motorised floor tool that uses ultra-fine conductive carbon fibre brushes to remove fine dust from hard floors and stiff nylon bristles to agitate the carpet to dislodge and remove ground-in dirt. Finally, a combination accessory tool with a wide nozzle picks up crumbs and large particles. It also converts to a brush tool for dusting, so you can get your cleaning done quicker. This lightweight cleaner costs £199.

All the cleaners above are available from John Lewis. Style tips from Yat Wong-Jones, will, we suspect, cost extra!

[Source: Clean up in style: The latest and greatest in vacuum cleaners]

If so, the Electrolux Silence Amplified vacuum cleaner could be the answer to all your housework-related prayers. It’s a hi-tech appliance fitted with an iPod dock and a powerful set of speakers embedded on the front of the machine. This combined with an ultra-quiet engine (the sound produced by the vacuum cleaner amounts to about 68 decibels, equivalent to the noise level of a normal conversation), is apparently the secret to turning a simple cleaning gadget into a multi-sensory entertainment station. And not only is the model virtually soundless, its patented optimised air flow and suction mechanism also help make it an eco-friendly option.

This all sounds like good, clean fun, but is the whole concept just a bit too wacky to work? Well, the company have certainly done their housework, er, homework. They’ve conducted rigorous studies in a test lab where volunteers had their hoovering prowess monitored while they listened music using the machines.

These experiments produced some interesting genre-specific results: jazz made the test vacuumers more thorough, while hard rock and heavy metal helped them get the job done faster. In addition, vacuuming assisted by music of any kind increased the number of nozzle sweeps, which in turn improved overall cleaning performance.

So while the idea might sound a bit far-out, it is based on genuine science. And as the second largest manufacturer of home appliances in the world, Electrolux’s technological expertise is certainly not to be sniffed at.

At the moment the Electrolux Silence Amplified vacuum cleaner is just a prototype, but the company claim to be able to mass produce the product to meet consumer demand. So it’s quite possible this lean, green cleaning machine could be coming to a living room near you early in the new year. And if you’re looking for a vacuum with va-va voom, it might be the neatest purchase you ever make.

[Source: Electrolux UltraSilencer vacuum – Music Edition?]