Ugg looked out from his cave and saw the frost on the ground. Brrrr! He wished they’d already invented boots! Maybe he’d invent them himself, maybe from sheepskins, yeah, that might work!

He clambered down the hill to the meeting place, and grunted a hello to the other Neanderthals dressed in their animal skins (they hadn’t invented Armani yet.) He waited for the service to start.

The Ball of Fire rose into the sky, and they all bowed low and grunted their morning praises, mostly consisting of “grogg,” “muh” and “rah” (language hadn’t yet developed and a conversation involved a lot of poking and pointing and drawing in the dust with a stick.) They didn’t talk much.

He picked his way through the allosaurus bones back up to his cave, where his woman (marriage hadn’t been invented, yet) Topaz was waiting with breakfast ready. It was going to be a big day, a brontosaurus barbeque that night for everybody! Trouble was, in a silly moment of bravado, he’d promised, in his best chest-beating style, to provide the brontosaurus! (dial-a-dinosaur hadn’t been thought of, yet.)

He made a firm vow to stick to just one fermented coconut on his next night out with the lads, and thought about his task. Brontosaurus were easy to catch, not dangerous (vegetarian, actually) but getting one back to the meeting place was a huge ask! (fork lift trucks hadn’t been invented, yet) A decent brontosaurus weighed fifteen tons! Ugg wondered how long before someone would invent the wheel, then turned to his breakfast.

As he ate his two pterodactyl eggs, he hatched his plan. He picked up his club, tapped Topaz lightly on the head with it (women’s lib hadn’t been developed yet) and headed for the Great Swamp.

The Great Geyser blew its top just as Ugg arrived at the swamp, blowing its steam over two hundred feet in the air. It blew its top regularly (actually every five hours, but time hadn’t been invented yet.)

Ugg hunted about and found the juiciest, most fragrant orchids in the swamp, and, picking as many as he could carry (conservation hadn’t been invented yet) he took them to the edge of the geyser and lay them in a circle around the hole. It wasn’t long before the booming footsteps of a brontosaurus shook the ground around him. As the dinosaur ate the orchids, Ugg clubbed him and he fell onto the geyser.

That afternoon, all the cavemen (and women) gathered for the feast. Ugg arranged them in a giant circle, and they sat there, sharpened bones in hand, waiting hungrily for the promised meat. Just as some mumbled grunts were heard (snide comments hadn’t been invented yet) they felt a rumbling spread through the ground below them. Everybody was scared, except Ugg.

With a huge whoosh, a steamed brontosaurus flew through the air and landed in the centre of the circle. Ugg gestured for them all to eat, and the meat was delicious, cooked to perfection! Everybody grunted their approval and agreed that Ugg should take the new position of tribal chef!

Ugg went to his cave happy and contented. He had done what he had promised, he was a hero, and he would be remembered forever as the man who invented the pressure cooker!