Martha decided to move with the times and try the delights of microwave cooking. Whereupon, her devoted husband Archie went out and bought her a brand new top-of-the range Sharp Microwave oven.
Christmas approached and Martha got out her Christmas pudding recipe and assembled the ingredients. She proceeded along traditional lines and even got the each member of the family to stir the mixture 'for luck'. When Martha consulted the microwave's manual for the cooking time, she could not believe that ten minutes would be enough for a traditional Christmas pudding. Consequently she decided to substitute her normal cooking time of 50 minutes.
As Martha was in the lounge watching her favourite T.V. programme she did not see the pudding spitting in the microwave oven, nor did she hear the mini-explosions. When she finally extracted the pudding from the microwave after nearly an hour of cooking on 'High', it smelt of burnt sugar and looked like a ball of tar. Naturally, the Christmas pudding was a disaster, so much so, that Martha could not even prod it with a fork. In fact the black ball stuck to the bottom of the bowl and Archie had to get a screwdriver to prize it from its base.
In a fit of pique, Martha threw the shrivelled Christmas pudding to Togo her St Bernard puppy. After a few days she could see the funny side, and Togo loved his new indestructible toy, which amused him until the next Christmas.
