Britain leads its European neighbours in the number of remote controls cluttering up each household.

A recent survey of 5,500 families in Germany, France, The Netherlands, Italy and the UK found that over half of UK homes have five or more remote controls in the house.

Some 41 per cent of men claimed that they rule the remote in their homes, not allowing other family members to use the device.

"The survey shows that modern households are awash with entertainment devices, and as televisions, computers and DVD players pile up, so too do the remote controls," said Adrian Criddle, country manager for Intel UK.

"As a result people are starting to feel overwhelmed and we believe that the entertainment PC offers an ideal solution."

The entertainment PC concept uses a single computer to replace television, video, DVD player, games console and hi-fi.

But the survey's findings make uncomfortable reading for entertainment PC vendors. Just under half of UK households said they would not consider having a PC in the living room.