Technology!

I bought a new toaster. I like it but we are still trying to understand one another! The main issue is that it has nine (9) different levels of ‘toastability’, and I’m still trying to figure out which one works for me... and for the bread!

Based on a single slice, Level 1 has such a light touch that the bread practically regresses and comes out in an earlier form of its baking cycle. Level 9 (the Nuclear level) produces something that would not look out of place amongst the ruins of Pompeii. Everything in between is... well, in between those extremes. I haven’t experimented with them all yet as I’m just taking a random approach, but I know that Level 3 (Snowflake) is one where the toaster doesn’t want to offend the bread and just gives it the softly, softly gentle touch, whereas Level 7 (Caribbean) is like having a beach holiday in Barbados for three weeks using only paraffin as sun screen.

I even tried the novel approach of reading the instruction manual, a publication which is thicker than one of those old telephone directories (mainly because it is translated into 483 different languages, the first three pages of which is English, my native tongue and my preferred one (well, for reading about toast anyway) but it goes on about the heating effect based on any combination of slice numbers inserted, and even the need to consider the type of bread used. 

Th toaster has four 'slice' compartments. I am no mathematician but I worked out on the back of a fag packet (I found it in a pub - I don't smoke) that that, surely, must give you only a maximum of 16 combinations i.e. each compartment takes one slice of bread and there are, as mentioned, four compartments. (I suppose, if you added up all the slice cooking options - which I haven't! - there could be 30 'variations'!). This suggests that I need to dial down, or up, the time/heat factor depending on the number of slices in the toaster at any one time! So, for example, two slices might mean somewhere around 'Snowflake plus', but four slices should be in between 'Caribbean' and 'Nuclear.'  I still don't know what Level 9 (Nuclear) is intended to do. The final result is not edible in any slice combination.

Breakfast should not be so complicated. I’m going back to cornflakes!