Words fail me.

The oven's on the blink and I need emergency microwave recipes. A quick internet search works wonders.

My, but how things have changed. Forget those tired old cliched pictures of the finished dish. Instead, you get photographs by the score of chefs staring coyly at the camera, sucking the tips of their fingers. Though I may be doing them an injustice, of course; could be they're just trying to pick the scraps of meat out of their back teeth.

I pick and click:

"For those times when you have a craving to don an apron, get your hands dirty and cook up something comforting, find delicious recipes by method here..."

Frankly, the times I've had to wrestle with my apron-donning cravings are so few that a quadruple limb amputee would have no difficulty counting them. But this is no time to be Mrs Picky, especially when the 26 letters of the alphabet fill the screen, all promising enticing microwave menu options.

I press the letter 'A'.

'There are no recipes beginning with 'A'. Please select another letter!' (I'm particularly keen on that exclamation mark - as if it adds the note of edgy humour that makes the whole thing somehow worthwhile.

On with 'B'.

'There are no recipes beginning with 'B'. Please select another letter!'

C - nothing. D - you've guessed it.

I'm beginning to lose heart. And there's no sign of an offal recipe in which to stew it, either.

Then, at E - bingo - 'Eggs Florentine.'

But it's just a cruel joke. At 'Z' I have unearthed only one more recipe, for Bread and Butter Pudding. Even here there's a twist. It's filed under 'M' - for 'My grandmother's recipe for Bread and Butter Pudding.' Of course. Stupid of me not to bone up on the author's idiosyncratic filing system. And her relations - or, at least, the ones who like cooking.

But they've got one thing right. I do now have a craving to 'get my hands dirty' - by taking a meat cleaver to whichever finger sucking star chef came up with the the idea in the first damn place.