Flashbacks

While walking to work this morning, I was suddenly assaulted with the smell of burning newspaper. For some reason this reminded me of Invercargill. I'm not sure why this was but when I was a kid I did have fun building volcanoes in the sandpit at home. They were never exactly monstrous affairs, probably because of v = 1/3 π r² h and the fact I only had a limited amount of v.

Anyway, wet sand is a wonderfully sticky substance and I'd have load of fun building a rough mountain shape, hollowing it out, digging an inlet port, filling it up with newspaper and finally setting it all alight. Burning newsprint instead of wood chips resulted in some lovely orange flames leaping in the air. If it got a bit too out of hand, kicking in the side of the volcano would, with any luck, put everything out.

Word to the wise; If you leave your volcano running for too long, the sand will become very hot. It pays to have some water on hand, not so much for putting out fire but rather for dunking body parts into. When you're doing a little more sculpting of the flaming masterpiece and hot sand lands on your hand, you'll be glad you didn't drink all your water supply.