I'm a fire-starter

Night before last I was busy in the kitchen making a sweet chilli dipping sauce. Somehow I spilled a big load of sugar on the hotplate of the Aga. No problem - I simply mopped it up with a piece of kitchen towel.

This led to a series of important discoveries,

1. Spilling sugar on an Aga creates a nasty smell
2. My curry did not mask the smell of the burning sugar
3. You cannot concentrate on cooking when there is smoke billowing in the kitchen
4. Despite there being no naked flames on the Aga hotplate it can still cause a kitchen towel to spontaneously combust
5. A plastic recycling bag isn't best place to put a piece of paper that is going to burst into flames