Should have read the manual...

I have to be honest I've never been totally happy with Olympus Mini.

She rumbles quite nicely and the pebble showers are pretty good too but when you start to use some of the advanced functions and settings I end up slightly disappointed. The other day I was trying out the Pyroclastic flow feature and it was OK, but I expected the roiling torment of ash and pumice to be - you know - a bit more than I got.

I had, of course, done what every man does. I'd opened the box, examined the contents and everything looked straightforward so I'd ignored the multi language manual and just powered her up and started messing around with the basic controls.

I had taken a token glance at the page which showed where the levelling screws were so that the lava fields were produced on the right face of the cinder cone, but that was it.

Anyway, I wasn't happy so I actually read the manual and it was actually very good. I found out that it was WIFI enabled and all I needed to do was lift a flap inside one of the lava tubes, link her to the home wireless router and within 5 minutes were we well in to a required firmware upgrade.

I am so chuffed - it is a completely different product. I can turn her up to 5 and use the Incinerator function - she will reduce anything including metal to basic oxides instantly. TP is delighted as it is much more fun than taking the wheelie bin out.

She did incinerate domestic rubbish before but the fragments of Whiskers cat food pouches left in the lava field did tend to spoil the effect.

I also cant wait for the Bank Holiday barbecue now I know that the concealed rotisserie will do a 4 lb chicken in minutes with no risk of Salmonella or Listeria.

Roll on Monday.

Picking up on "Olympus Mini" and my plans for commercial breeding of miniature dinosaur pets I had another thought .......

...... all I need to do is persuade 30% to pose in a fur bikini with "Dippy" in front of the Olympus Mini and I can start to do my own reenactment of One Million Years BC.

"You are having a laugh" was the response - Oh Well I'm guessing that the mini black hole is going to be staying on the shelf at Homebase and the planned re-make of 2001, a Space Odyssey is not going to be happening soon.