A tale of three toasters

For about ten years we have shared various abodes with a 1960s Japanese toaster that I acquired from Le Bon Coin - incredibly useful recycling site from which we buy just about everything other than food. 

The toaster has recently become a little surreal in its toasting, carbonising the odd corner, small bits of metal becoming loose; generally a geriatric toaster but still doing its job. I like the simplicity of it - the clicky clockwork wheel which counts down the toasting time, its smart chrome and teal blue livery, solid; and it's called Tornado. Interesting. Not sure if the 60s Japanese design team/marketing outfit thought it through very thoroughly, Sunrise, perhaps, or Summer Breeze Rippled Corn Field - bit clunky, but something evoking bread, breakfast, etc. Or maybe in Japan toast is only eaten in fear as severe weather conditions loom.

For some reason it was agreed in our household that perhaps it was time to update the bread grilling experience, and maybe buy A New Toaster! What?? NEW? Maybe it was the fact that we had actually acquired a new electric kettle a few months back after genning up on the most fuel efficient ones, the gas stove and old stainless steel kettle situation not being ideal . . .

I relegated - a tad tearfully - the old toaster to the dump pile, and Mark enthusiastically unwrapped and installed the new 'vintage' Russell Hobbs, cream and chrome (plastic) interloper. We tested it over a couple of breakfasts all arriving to the same conclusion: it warmed the bread efficiently, but actual toasting . . . nope. Even on the max setting. Maybe it was faulty; the one that had escaped the no-doubt rigorous testing stages in whatever Chinese factory it had been expelled from. Mark repackaged it and off it went to hopefully not join instant landfill via Uncle Amazon. We perused other models after not finding anything suitably 'vintage' on the bon coin other than SMEG which hold their scary price very well on the second hand market. 

The second cream and chrome toaster arrived - a little more like a 50s car, rounded, more knobs, dials and even a little red light to indicate ON. But, the same issue: light warming of the bread, nothing more. Ezra pointed out that the electric elements are spaced much further apart than those of the Tornado. To accommodate fatter slices of bread, or perhaps the machines are calibrated to white flabby bread only, not home made rustic slabs; or maybe it's some paranoid decree over heat levels to stop people burning toast, setting fire to themselves, the house or neighbourhood.

The new model was re-packed and sent back, and the Tornado reinstalled after a major clean of its real metal and chrome.

The Tornado

I've noted recently the rise of 'repair cafés'. What a great idea. I'd love to know that I could actually extend the life of one of our mouldering household appliances when their time would normally be deemed to be up.

                                                     Think I'd rather like this fancy 20s one...

London wanderings, Number . . . I've forgotten.

There have been many recorded on this blog, and here's one from this June. At the end of a round UK trip of a couple of weeks visiting lovely friends and family I rounded it off with a three night stop in my home city, and the best B and B I can honestly remember - an elegant semi in south London stuffed with art, lovely objects, incredible garden, and run by marvellous hosts.

I'm currently working on paintings based on sketches in London - mainly from train windows, and so now how have a good stock built up, mainly from around Greenwich, east London and Highgate - the areas I was doing most of my wanderings, as ever exploring and marvelling over how many undiscovered-by-me places this fascinating city holds even after living there for years, and all the trips since. 

                                    Wig world and carpet corner - new to me bits of South and North London

Lewisham

Greenwich - somewhat different skyline from when I last visited about 30 years ago

Finds from Thames mud near London Bridge

Any problem solved . . . including removal of evil spirits

I would have brought one back . . . just a tad too heavy

but can wear tuxedos?

A very scary clothes shop somewhere on the Strand - I think

The Golden Hind - near Borough Market

 

I enjoyed a gawp-trip into Selfridges

The stupidest bag - ever (reduced to 690 quid )

The ugliest and most expensive training shoe (s) - presume you get two for over 1,000 pounds

The most ludicrous food product - the smallest gold tin of caviar, 900 quid

The most bemused people - other than me - a group of Tibetan monks who had been 'let out' for a day, according their diminutive female minder, from somewhere in Woking - not an average Best Western I imagine