Luft! I need Luft!

The gadget is a staple of many action films. Our hero is given a fabulous gun or a light sabre or a watch that emits a laser beam or a car that can turn invisible or a magical ring or some such.

And you just know that at some point in the film he will need that gadget to extricate himself from a sticky situation. Admittedly, sometimes you need to wait for the director's cut DVD to see some gadgets being used - like Frodo's invisibility cloak or Sam's elven rope.

But on the whole, the process goes something like this. In the first reel, introduce the gadget. Po-faced quartermaster character explains what it does. Wait a while for the audience to forget about it. Then uncork the gadget in the last reel, the hero defeats the baddy, the volcano blows up, the world is safe again.

Gadgets are often used once and once only, which I suppose is not very sustainable in these climate conscious days.

The worst culprit for this are the sword and sorcery flicks where the writers can just invent a magical doohickey of wherever to get them over a plot hole. I gift you the fabled toothpick of Tiddle-de-dum. Use it to extricate food matter from your molars when all hope is lost and you haven't got a toothbrush.

Today's puzzle is a gadget lover's dream. We have a discovered check pointing straight at the black king. What is more, this Disco Volante has a secret extra feature. If you flip the top of the gear stick you will find a red button. Whatever you do, don't press it. It will turn the ordinary discovered check into a double check.

<26.?>

That diagonal battery must have at least six alarm bells going off in the regular player's head before deciding to ignore it for the better. In this case, black's most likely Kg8 will be his downfall.