I haven't had a lot of spare time lately, what with organising tours and building websites for rockstars etc., but I thought I must spare a few minutes to tell you about my new microwave oven. (This message would have taken ages to write but I wrote it in the microwave.....)

OK, well.... I can't begin to tell you how amazing it is. The old one was pretty damn good, but it was like all you lot - gettin old, tired and worn out. So when I was out shoppin today I got all hormonal and bought a new one. And blimey, this one is so simple to use that even bassplayers can understand it. It cooks everything I want it to cook! There are buttons for all the things we eat! There really is a button on the front that says 'frozen pizza'! How about that! One for 'frozen ready meals', one for 'reheating chips', one for 'jacket tayters' and one for 'thawing bread you should have taken out of the freezer last night you silly cow'.

Click on it to see the real magic

It really is amazing. It knows when stuff is ready! I don't know how it knows, but it just does. And when things are ready, it even sends you an email to tell you! No, I lied about that, but it beeps politely and waits till you've finished uploading to the website. The other one used to carry on like the house was on fire if you didn't open it straight away. Talkin of which, I cooked a perfect peetzer in it this afternoon (my first go at using it) and it set the smoke alarm off but that was my fault for over-estimating how much the peeeeetzer weighed. I hardly had to scrape it at all, and even the black bits felt nourishing, not like on the old one.

I tell ya, even the recipe book that came with it is sensible. My last one had recipes for Egg and Anchovy Dip and rubbish like that. Who the hell eats crap like that, huh, let alone cooks it at home. This one tells you how to do scrambled eggs so they don't stick to the plate. Brilliant!!!!

Anyway, it's not a microwave at all - it's a time machine! Raw things go in, and virtually straight away, cooked things come out. Blimeyyyyyyy !!!! Broadband Cookery!

Look at the Peeetzer button - press once to cook chilled peeeeeeetzer, and twice for frozen peeeeeeetzer. Amazing!
On the oval panel at the top is where the display comes up to tell you what to do. And it tells you EXAKKERLY what to do! It says 'Set the Weight', and then it tells you to 'Press the Start Button', and after it's browned and crisped it to perfection it says 'ok you fat cow, now go and eat it and make sure you don't get any crumbs between the keys this time cos your space-bar is in danger of gettin rats under it'.

Also, I've just found out that the 'Casserole' button isn't for casseroles you stand around peeling and chopping up veggieballs for - it's for readymade casseroles you buy in a tinfoil dish. Blimey! Dumplings!!

And 'Dimension 4 Turbo-Bake' is like... wowowowowowowow. It's not like cooking, it's like magic. No, it IS magic. It's amazing - although there isn't a Ferrero Rocher button, so fellas, if you're thinkin of buying one of these USS Enterprise jobbies, you will still have to use the tongue-test for that.

One week later...

I got round to reading the book the other day, and blimeyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy... if you bung one of those frozen crispy-cod-in-breadcrumbs thingies in it, and press Combi, then Turbo-Bake (you have to press it quickly, 4 times, to get it up to 230C, and then press Grill, and then press Micro Power twice (quickly) ..... in only THREE minutes, you have a dinner! If you put McCain's Oven Chips on the plate as well, it will take SIX minutes. It works every time, too - not like some of my dinners. It wasn't a fluke - I've had it three days running, and it has been consistently fantastic. You need only be away from the computer for the time it takes to press the buttons, and there's only one plate for Mr. Bat to load into the diswasher. Blimeyfandabidozey.

Xmas 2002 Update

For those of you who haven't heard of Jane Asher, let me tell you a bit about her. She is a paragon of housewifely excellence who is famous for her flaming auburn hair, her discreet relationship with a rockstar, and for the way she can put together a Christmas dinner for nineteen people without gettin rat-arsed and hateful. And her tablecloths always have ribbons on them, flash cow.

Well, this Christmas I decided to make amends to Mr.Bat for all he's had to put up with through the year. I decided not to cheat. I didn't even send him out for any Auntie Bessie Stuffing Balls. I sliced carrots cockeyedly so that it was obvious they were real and not bought ones. I peeled brussels, I peeled spuds, and I folded serviettes - well, it was slices of kitchen roll, but they looked like serviettes when I'd finished with them. I made proper gravy with granules and boiling water, and by the miracle of Metal Mickey I managed to get it all on the table by 1.10pm, 1.22, 1.25, 1.31, and 1.33.

And I only dropped one bit of meat on the floor, but as everyone knows, cat hairs are the new rock'n'roll. The dinner actually tasted pretty damn good, and I was the epitome of serenity (whewwww, UFO reference at last).

I swear the sell-by-date on the Cranberry Sauce only ran out in October (October 2001, but blimey, it looked ok when I'd scraped the white bits off the top and he's used to out-of-date stuff anyway).

So, it all went rather well. The funniest bit was when I found a saucepan full of peas that I'd forgotten to dish out, but by that time we all felt sick so it didn't matter. Happy Christmas everyone!