1. Ration Pods

Troops giving you trouble on long marches or getting peckish and grumpy on the train?

Pack some pods with small healthy snacks and slip them in your pocket or bag - a perfect little nibble for the trail.

You could use dried fruits, nuts, chocolate chips, breakfast cereals - or anything else you can think of.

2. Keep Safe

Need to take off rings, earrings or other jewellery for swimming or sports? Pop them in a pod so they don't get lost in your locker.

3. Pill Pod

If you've been prescribed a course of pills, it can be inconvenient to carry the whole pack around with you (and you might forget and leave it at work or something).

Put just the tablets you need in a pod and leave the rest in a safe place - or if you've got several different medicines to take, you could count them out into seven separate pods, one for each day.

4. Camping Condiments

Don't settle for underseasoned food while camping or on a picnic.

But no need to take the whole kitchen with you either.

Each pod will hold about four teaspoons of salt, sugar, herbs, pepper, paprika or other spices, gravy powder, even ketchup or chilli sauce

5. Guessing Game

You know - for kids! Gather a collection of small items such as: coin, marble, die, ring, button, bean, pebble, shell, nut, etc - anything small enough to fit in a pod.

Pick one item and close it in the pod, then hand it around and see if the kids can guess the item without opening the pod. Younger children might need to see the candidate items beforehand - but older ones might be able to guess without having seen any of them.

6. Soap

There are any number of situations where you might end up with dirty hands and only water to clean them - if you have to change a wheel - or have to deal with a nosebleed.

A small cube of soap in a pod in the glovebox of your car might come in handy one day.

7. The World's Smallest Fishing Kit

A dozen feet of line wrapped onto a slice of synthetic wine cork (the ends of the line secured in a slit in the cork.

A couple of hooks - sharp ends secured into slits in the cork

A weight and spinner.

But what about the float? The pod itself serves here - wrap the line once around the hinge piece and close the pod to secure it.

8. Tiny Percussion

Put a teaspoon of dried peas, beans or rice in a pod and snap it shut - little kids can shake it to the music, without making too much of a racket. (You might want to seal it with duct tape or similar to prevent accidental or deliberate spillage of contents)

9. Pack Remainders

A lot of small household items come in flimsy plastic packs that can't be resealed - fuses, screws, washers, eyelets - once you've used as many as you need, the remainder can be kept safe inside a pod for next time.

10. Handy Bag

A plastic carrier bag can be useful in all kinds of situations - if you happen across some feral apples, or interesting bits of driftwood, or just if you want to be green and re-use your bag at the shops.

But a scrunched-up bag isn't the most convenient thing to put in your pocket or bag.

Folded and rolled up carefully though, it will pack away neatly inside a pod.

11. Seeds

Once a packet of seeds is opened, the contents are easy to spill - and if you save or collect seeds yourself for growing next year, there's no packet at all - so pop them in a pod (make sure they're completely dry first).

12. Stuff For A Single Night Away

If you're staying away form home for just one night, prize pods are just the right size for single-serving portions of toothpaste, shampoo, moisturiser, sunblock etc. (just not all in the same pod!)

Over To You

OK, so there are 12 ideas for Kinder Surprise prize pods (some of them better than others, I think) - can you think of any I haven't covered? Feel free to add your ideas in the comments section at the bottom of the page...

Kinder Toys

I don't know what's happened to the toys in Kinder Surprise eggs recently - they used to include some quite clever little kits comprising lots of intricate pieces - sometimes assembling into quite large, if delicate toys - occasionally, they would even have little diecast metal figures in them.

Lately, however, they seem to have taken a turn toward the bizarre - for example, in one the egg I opened especially for this article, there was what seems to be a hatchling dragon figure - it did need assembly - the wings needed pushing into place...

But this assembly was artificial - for two reasons:

• Some assembly has clearly already been done at the factory - the little flock dragon and his egg shell are inseparable.
• Even when fully assembled, the figure still fits inside the pod

So outside of possible collectible worth, the entertainment value of this toy was pretty poor

C'mon Kinder - I know you can do better - let's see some toys that need lots of assembly and have intricate function when completed, please!