Not the Which Report on kitchen equipment

How gratifying to receive a commission. Commenting on my post about pencil sharpeners, Lucy asked if my research team could investigate garlic crushers. I was delighted to comply but hadn't realised what an emotive subject this is. There was a hint that it might be in Plutarch's comment nominally also about pencil sharpeners.

My senior consultant (Guess who?) reacted noisily and definitively. "They're all rubbish. We've had several and none of them worked." By which she meant that anything calling itself a garlic crusher was to be avoided. However garlic can be crushed - by lateral thinking.

The perfect tool (on the right) is the Krups Type 203B which, oddly enough, is made in France. Garlic crushed in this very serious chopping mill stays crushed. But there are two disadvantages. Cleaning after use means sticking your finger into a cavity dominated by a sharp, twin-edged blade. Given its size it was also hideously expensive and was to some extent superseded by the food processor. My wife passed it on to me when I was going through my coffee-bean-grinding phase. I avoided damaging my finger-tips by cleaning it with a redundant pastry brush. Eventually I tired of its high-frequency shriek and I now use pre-ground coffee which I keep in the freezer.

Now, chez nous, garlic is crushed with the marble mortar and pestle. This is not only efficient but resonates with my wife's atavism and her aesthetics.

If it's a button - whatever turns you on

When married couples split up and divide the household spoils, the husband tends to take the hi-fi. Which explains why a hi-fi looks the way it does. Rather than disguise the knobs, switches and buttons, the designer turns them into a virtue - emphasising their technicity - supporting the belief that men revel in an amplifier's appearance while women simply use it to play the CD.

I must confess I did the choosing and the buying when we acquired the twin-drive CD player and the tuner/amp (left). And I love them both. The 700 - 800 CDs are another matter. Dividing them would be impossible. They could be part of the glue that holds us together.

Confirmation of the men/hi-fi link occurred on a ski-ing holiday when I shared a chalet populated by solicitors and doctors. I mentioned the above thesis and one male doctor became thoughtful. Then he looked at his wife, another doctor. "Tell you what darling, if we split up you can have the hi-fi," he said. Obviously he saw a split-up as an opportunity to buy a new hi-fi - with even more switches and buttons!

In any case I used a PC

Guess which is the better pencil-sharpener. That's right, the one on the right. It either came in a Christmas cracker or cost tuppence-ha'penny at Woolworths.

The other has settings for four different points (stubby to stiletto), a clamp to hold the pencil secure, a sliding tray to catch the shavings and a glass porthole on top so you can watch the grinding bits at work. But you could tell from Day One it would disappoint. Underneath the base is a rubber sucker which is supposed to attach it temporarily to a table-top. It never did.

I can't imagine what it cost because I was given it as a douceur when I was still a working journalist. Luckily I approved of the source beforehand and so my copy was published uncorrupted.

There's a moral here somewhere.

Test your intellect and endurance

Previous gap in transmission due to our - by now - mandatory attendance at the twenty-first Hay-on-Wye Festival, described by an earlier speaker, Bill Clinton, as "the Woodstock of the Mind". No technology but plenty of adult grist. Professor Steve Jones on how the theory of evolution will apply in the future, Gore Vidal being silkily provocative (Q: Mr Vidal, what message have you for today's youth? A: Grow up! (long pause) It's inevitable), Christopher Hitchens continuing his jousts with God, and Professor Richard Holmes showing how history should be taught with a masterly address on Marlborough.

I'd urge everyone to attend Hay at least once but, alas, this recommendation comes with a monstrous caveat. Hay, just over the border in Wales, is in the lee of the Black Mountains and enjoys its own micro-climate. Perhaps "enjoys" is not the right word. Last year's Hay was run at the same time as a Test Match (that's cricket for our foreign readers) which experienced the dubious distinction of the coldest day in the history of Test Matches. This year I have only seen rain heavier at RAF Changi on the island of Singapore. Also, Hay is a tented festival and when you're not being frozen and/or drowned you're straining to hear what's being said against the uproar from hurricane-blasted canvas. It can also be warm.

But as Michelin says: Il vaut le voyage.

Bouncing better than being bruised

Long ago when I was less aware of my own mortality I used to go rock-climbing. During that period climbing technology took a giant step forward.

Previously climbers had been linked by hemp rope, a material better suited to public hangings than sport. To achieve the strength required to hold a falling leader, hemp needed to be quite thick. Thus heavy. Since it was absorbent rain made it heavier. Hemp also deteriorated although it was hard to spot the evidence of this. It tangled easily.

Once nylon climbing rope became available in the early fifties I imagine most hemp rope was converted into oakum. Nylon was stronger per millimetre diameter, didn't absorb water, did not deteriorate and was less prone to tangling. And it had one further special quality. A long fall arrested by hemp rope often bruised the climber's waist. But nylon stretched!

Which was kinder when you fell but alarming when you stepped down on to the rock face to begin an abseil (eg, see the indented clipart).

All this and a closer view of Saturn

The most beautiful place in the world (Sorry, San Francisco... Lot Valley... Brecon Beacons... Banff national park... Zermatt... Goat Tarn... etc, etc) is unimaginatively labelled Port Underwood Sound on the east coast of New Zealand's South Island. No competition, I'm afraid. Imagine a fiord defined by tree-covered cliffs, a sea surface broken into a dozen colours, a tendency towards violently pink dawns, huge skies, smooth lichen-covered rocks that predate time and the type of silence that can only be bought from real remoteness.

Access is via 25 km of unsealed roads and a notice discourages those towing caravans. Caravans! How about anything other than four-wheel-drive?

It also proved to be a dream destination for this techie enthusiast. Our B&B hosts were former Americans, now naturalised Kiwis, who'd built their own beautiful - and beautifully functioning - house overlooking the Sound. He now sculpted animals in pewter but before that had designed Formula One and Indy cars for Mario Andretti, Mark Donohoe and others.

Pan-fried terahiki was accompanied by Cloudy Bay sauvignon blanc. Then we stepped on to the balcony and inspected Saturn through his powerful telescope. Gradually the earth's rotation caused the planet's image to ease itself out of the viewfinder. Hmmm.

I wonder what's behind this door?

Does this label mean anything to you: “Track changes”? Or this one: “Online collaboration. (Meet Now. Web discussions)” ?*

If so you’ve delved more deeply than I have into Microsoft Word’s “functionality” (I love the IT business. Never use one syllable when you can use five). But which of us belongs to the majority?

I think there’s an unwritten rule about software development. As version follows version more features are added and they’re used by fewer and fewer people. The aim must surely be to add a feature which no one uses. But it mustn’t be useless. The rule is it must be (a) unexpected, and (b) almost impossible to define under Help. The equivalent of the programmer shouting down a well and hearing echoes of applause from other programmers in recognition of the purity of his achievement.

Not that I’m complaining about Word. I wouldn’t be without it. In fact I have a sneaking suspicion I couldn’t be without it. What I don’t need is its next – and here’s another one of those written blurs – iteration.

* If you’re curious, they’re under Tools.

Blazing inferno a source of joy

The electric stove in our rented house in Pittsburgh was quite old. One day ceramic insulation broke away from a hob coil, exposing the bare wire. A multi-amp arc leaped from the wire and punched a hole in the base of the frying pan. Oil in the pan ignited and set alight the wooden kitchen cabinets.

My wife told our two daughters to leave the house, closed the door on the inferno, retrieved the cat who - awkward as ever – was basking somewhere unexpected and left the house to await eventualities.

I was elsewhere at the time and had chance to reflect. Yes, I’d have attended to our daughters, yes I’d have closed the kitchen door… but the cat? Upstairs I had a half-written novel in MS. Happily we’ll never know.

The fire was confined to the kitchen and the landlord had us cooking again within twenty-four hours. When he installed new cabinets he paid for us to eat out. US landlords were like that.

The wrecked pyromaniacal stove was put at the end of the driveway and my older daughter had the inexpressible delight of seeing it slung into the back of the garbage truck and crushed as flat as a pizza by the truck’s powerful jaws. She told me this with shining eyes that evening. I was glad. The tiny publishing company I was working for was “going down the toobs” and we were short of money for things like family entertainment. Ah the benefits of technology!