A Tefal Avanti Toaster

It was the week before Christmas when my toaster passed away.

Nursing a rather extreme hangover, I had located the kitchen and instinctively placed two slices of bread into the toaster in readiness for a breakfast of champions. As I blundered from the kitchen trying to locate first the bathroom, then my shoes, the sudden protest launched by the smoke alarm in the hallway indicated the toaster’s sudden demise.

My toaster, my provider of bread-based succour was now heating at a temperature normally associated with the surface of the sun. How was I supposed to spread the margarine when there was a huge hole burnt through the centre of the bread?

With a new toaster of course!

One trip to the grey majesty of Swindon later I was in possession of a new Tefal Avanti toaster. A few sample slices of ASDA cheap-o-white bread were toasted and the optimum power level selected. With lovely, brown, even slices of toast available within two-minutes, I was in toast nirvana!

Christmas came and went, as did the rest of 2005. During the hazy days of the New Year period I often found myself in Jenny’s kitchen wobbling in around in various states of intoxication. During one rare moment of sobriety I noticed she too had a Tefal Avanti toaster (be it the “four seater” version) sat on her kitchen worktop. I commented on our shared taste in toasters; she agreed that the Tefal Avanti is indeed the toaster of the gods.

Back at work after the holiday period I was repairing a combination boiler (A Baxi 105e fact fans) at a property in Croft Road, Swindon. Whilst prodding at various boiler components to give the impression I knew what I was doing, I spotted a Tefal Avanti toaster sat proudly next to the microwave in the kitchen. I mentioned my ownership of a Tefal Avanti toaster to the customer – she laughed and then asked if I knew what I was doing to her boiler.

In the village of Manton, near Marlborough, there is a small cottage whose occupier had a troublesome boiler. I was there earlier this month, repairing the boiler whilst admiring the Tefal Avanti toaster that resided in the kitchen. When informed of my recent multiple findings of Tefal Avanti toasters, the customer simply replied, “ooh!”.

Then there’s the Avanti toaster in a house at Sparcells, there’s the cottage in Wood Street with an Avanti toaster sat on the pine worktop in the kitchen, even one of my colleagues bought a Tefal Avanti toaster after I informed him of my recent toaster findings.

The Tefal Avanti toaster is everywhere! On average I’ve discovered one Tefal Avanti toaster for every forty properties I visit during my working week. Given the number of households on this sceptred isle, there must be at least one million* Tefal Avanti toasters in the UK. I’d like to think it’s popularity is due to it’s low price (£15 during the Christmas sales) and it’s many many toasting features. In reality I think it’s due to Skynet, the fictional computer network created by Cyberdyne Systems Corporation from The Terminator series of films. As killer cyborgs have yet to be created, the next best available technology for world domination is the toaster.

Skynet are using the Tefal Avanti toaster to take over the world. Does anybody want any toast?

*this figure is based upon a calculation I have yet to make