Do you remember the Guinness Brewmasters (or simply the "Brilliant!") ad campaign that ran in the UK (and elsewhere) in the early 2000s?

These typically featured two rather scruffy-looking animated brewmasters standing together, each holding a pint of Guinness. The animation was intentionally crude—cut-out, almost Terry Gilliam/Monty Python-style—with jerky movement and deliberately simplistic artwork (the roughness was part of the joke rather than a budget limitation).

One brewmaster would proudly announce some "new invention" or observation, usually something absurdly mundane or something that had existed for ages, like sliced bread, the six-pack, suntan lotion, scented candles, Irish dancing… the list goes on.

The other would pause for perhaps half a second, look impressed, and exclaim in an enthusiastic Irish accent: "Brilliant!" They would then clink their pint glasses (or bottles) together and take a drink.

There were also "bloopers" made in the same deliberately shoddy animation style, where the characters fluffed their lines or the production appeared to go wrong, extending the joke beyond the adverts themselves. The campaign became so popular that "Brilliant!" entered everyday conversation in the UK. I still catch myself saying it in exactly that intonation from time to time.

In fact, by some strange quirk of fate, my friend Joe Farr in the UK just sent me an email pointing me to his blog to show me something that caused me to exclaim, “Brilliant!” (Check out Joe's website for more details.)

I don’t know about you, but when I’m creating a hobby project that requires multiple small pieces of heat-shrink tubing, it really niggles me if they aren’t all exactly the same length, even if I’m the only one who will ever see them. I’d feel even worse if I were doing something professionally for someone who was paying me.

Joe feels the same way. In fact, he recently undertook a piece of assembly work that required hundreds of pieces of heat-shrink tubing, all of the same length, so he 3D-printed a simple tool.

As we see, this comprises a rectangular strip to which Joe superglued a pair of old snips. There’s also a sliding end stop with a securing screw to set the desired tube length. All I can say is that I, for one, am very impressed. I want to get myself one of these!

But wait, there’s more! You know what it’s like on YouTube. You go there for one thing (like the aforementioned “Brilliant!” video, and you are tempted by others, such as the guy who puts up fake signs that no one asks for.

I don’t know about you, but every time he showed a new one of his creations, I couldn’t help but think… you know it’s coming… “Brilliant!”