"It's colour TV!" he declared, laying a sheet of multi-hued plastic over the screen of their black and white telly.
   "No it's not," said my grandfather.
   "It is!" insisted the salesman. "Look!" He had a point for, if you moved your head up and down, the image changed colours, the characters on the screen being alternately blue, green, red and yellow.
   "Get out of the house!" ordered my grandfather.

Then there was the man who came selling an early form of food processor in an era when housewives still shelled peas and peeled beans. Dad remembered that the salesman talked a lot and seemed rather nervous as he stood in their kitchen, preparing to give grandma a demonstration. This would convince her that what she needed was a machine that would magically chop and dice vegetables, thus leaving her plenty of leisure time to spend on washing, ironing, scrubbing, cooking and bringing up three boys.

"Watch this!" said the salesman who, having inserted several carrots into the machine, pressed the "on" switch. The machine screamed into life at about the same time as my grandmother. In his nervous haste, the salesman had neglected to properly attach the lid and shredded carrot flew around the kitchen, peppering my grandma's face and covering the salesman in bright orange flecks.

It was my Juice Fountain, the latest addition to our kitchen armoury, that triggered this recollection. It had been purchased by my fiancée who, concerned that the only fruit I ate was the raisins in my muesli, decided than an abundance of fresh juice would save me from winter's flu-laden embrace.

I read the brochure that accompanied it but, being a bloke, understood very little of it - which didn't matter because blokes know how things work. How difficult could it be? Chop up the fruit, put it in the top of the machine, turn it on and watch the juice flow out of the spout on the side while the pulp went into the container on the other side. Simple. I did this and I delighted in my success, slurping down large quantities of apple, orange and carrot juice. Mate, I could feel it doing me good. The downside was that you had to pull the thing apart and clean it after each use.

So I washed it and dried it and reassembled it and went off to work, vitamin C coursing through my veins, flu germs retreating in disarray before it. I did the same the next morning and the next, and by morning four had become quite proud of my new routine. The best part was when I flicked the switch and watched the blade devour the bits of orange, apple and carrot I'd crammed into it.

Flick! went the switch on morning four, followed by a whine as the blade spooled up to full speed, and a shriek went up as the first spray of orange pulp impacted on the far wall. Whup, whup, whup! went the bits flying through the air, splattering the adjacent living room with finely chopped bits of carrot and chunks of apple and orange. My squeals of despair must have been clearly audible over the whine of the blade as I fought against the broadside of flying fruit to get to the "off" switch.