Things I need: 1. Clock cosy

This is the first in a series. The idea is to list and describe things I need but which I never seem to get, often because no-one makes them and instead of making whatever it is myself I use some stop-gap measure that quickly and annoyingly assumes a sense of permanence.

Ever since buying a replacement bedside clock-radio I have needed a clock-cosy - a light-proof cover in a subdued colour, ideally black - that I can place over the clock.

The history to this is that we had a Sony bedside clock-radio for years that was no picture but that functioned pretty well until it began to crackle. The crackling came in a short burst some time at either side of "thought for the day" on Radio Four's Today Programme. Had the crackle run throughout thought for the day I would have put it down to divine intervention and thought nothing of it. But usually it interrupted something interesting.

So we bought a new clock (after enduring the crackle for about three or four years). The Sony shop had a choice of about four or five and we bought an egg-shaped clock that looked sort of futuristic.

The old clock had a dial setting. The new one had little buttons on the top. I set the buttons for lots of stations, all of which, apart from one, we did not need because we only listen to the Today programme.

Now the most important button on a radio-clock is the "off" switch that you need for weekends when you don't need to get up quite so early. Organised people might set their clocks before they go to sleep but I can never remember so I have to reach over to the clock in my slumbers, pressing the wrong button and knocking it to the floor.

Pressing the wrong button almost always knocks the station out of synch so we lose every station, including Radio Four and I have to go through the setting process all over again. Even worse than this, however, is the ridiculously bright LED display that, at its highest setting, bathes the room in an eerie blue light. I need total darkness so even a chink of light is too much.

For a while I covered the clock with a beer towel - stolen from a pub clothes line on a barge holiday during my teens. The towel, however, is one of my most useful items and gets borrowed for trips to the gym. So it's rarely there when it's needed. I have tried a sock but it's not ideal and doesn't look aesthetically pleasing. A handkerchief is too thin.

I have tried placing the clock upside down on the floor. But this makes it a devil to find when I need to turn it off at weekends. More than once the bedside table with the table lamp has come crashing down.

No, what I need is a neat cover but you can't find them in the shops. In fact I would take two if they were also sound padded and I would use the second for my office phone. This cordless BT phone does not have an off-switch or a divert to the answer phone. I have used a tea-cosy on this one but it's not ideal and means that the tea-pot goes begging.

I also need a phone-finder homing device for the cordless phone and all the other cordless phones that are never where you need them to be, but that's another story.

I should add that we did not get rid of the old Sony clock but put that on Gill's bedside table instead. Now we have clocks going off in stereo - one with it's annoying intermittent crackle and the other with just too many confusing buttons.

Life is too short for this. But we have yet to settle on a satisfactory solution. Any ideas?