Kitchen can't take the heat

19.03.06: THE IDEAL Home Exhibition at Earl's Court had to be closed temporarily when a visitor was attacked and injured by the kitchen of a smart house exhibit.

John Roberts, 57, said he entered the kitchen to see if its nutritional advice system would offer some insights on what foods he should be eating.

However, instead of helping Roberts prepare the low-salt, low-cholesterol meal he requested, the intelligent mixing bowl mysteriously malfunctioned and began to send food flying around the kitchen, eventually hitting the hapless visitor in the face with a carrot.

The organisers eventually had to turn off the power supply to the entire exhibition hall to stop the kitchen showering visitors and staff with hot and cold food.

Roberts was taken to a nearby hospital where he was treated for shock.

The kitchen's inventors later claimed that Roberts's pacemaker interfered with its communication system. They offered to install a specially modified smart kitchen in his home so as to compensate for distress caused by the incident, but Roberts declined, saying he felt safer with his traditional kitchen. MP