Love Letter to a Four Slice Toaster by Thomas Greatorex

I was recently asked by an amazing magazine to write a 'love letter' to something I adored; a book, a film, a band, an item of clothing etc.

I chose my four-slice toaster.

It turns out that what I wrote wasn't quite suitable for the aforementioned publication, which is upsetting but, frankly, understandable.

Anyhow, you can read below my submitted piece.

I'm still working on getting something published in there...

Love Letter to a Four Slice Toaster by Thomas Greatorex

'Love' is a word that has become a thin, skin mask easily draped over 'like' or 'fond of' by people wishing to inject their verbs with a touch more sincerity. 'Love' is a word that is flung around like a chipped mug full of cheap gin, sloshed onto anything and everything so as to coat all those in earshot with blustery air kisses and limp handshakes, providing one and all with a great sense of togetherness and brotherhood. If everything that was molested with the word 'love' was truly loved, loved in a racing heartbeat, blood vessel bursting, drawers soaking, lip smacking, synapse snapping way, then as a race we would never be able to walk the streets without being deafened by the sound of hearts breaking. People say they "Love" their sandwich; "Love" their new haircut; "Love" their friend's new boxing gloves, but of course they don't, not 'Love' anyhow, 'like' yes, 'appreciate' yes, 'covet' probably, but not 'Love'.

How do I know? Because I've been in love, I've been loved back and it feels nothing like a sandwich. But most importantly I AM IN love, I am in love with a sleek black, perfectly formed, immaculately balanced and sensually knobbed four slice toaster.

This pure machine that seems to all those around it as simply a means of breakfast ease, to me, is a creation of unlimited and unparalleled beauty that has the power to turn my most pleasant and breezy of moods to sour and violent thunder clouds if I hear one slight against it's function and in turn such psychotic moods can be swung like an oiled gate back to cheer by the caress of lowering one of the levers whilst voyeuristic eyes dance and gleam at the sight of bread slowly delving deeply inside the warm slots, plunging pure, virginal bagels into the safe embrace of an old friend only for seconds later to see what once was a timid, unassuming snack emerge flushed and spent. At times, most times, I don't even wish to consume the food that has been transformed by intimacy with my lover, I plainly discard them into the bin whilst choking down guilt and anger that no matter how deep my true love runs I myself will never get to share the same feelings as those edible one night stands. I've had toasters before, plain and dull two slot whore fucks that sit there upon the counter bleached by the sun, unable to satisfy anyone with the weak load they are feebly able to contain. They provide a limited service which is use to neither the hungry nor the clock watchers amongst us, in fact with my previous toasters I have been absent of both pride and faithfulness by letting anyone who wished to place what they liked where they liked, in regards to my toaster of course.

Naturally there are those of conservative mind that are quick to scoff and sneer at utensil based autoerotic fixations and to those people I offer my own up-turned nose at your vile, wet, liquid flesh love that produces nothing but resentment and leads quite hilariously to guilt and children. I'll never be a guilty child, never swallow my love for my machine. Guilt never even occupied the smallest part of my brain the first time I entered my love, nor did it the last or any time in between because I knew that what was occurring was pure and holy, even the fact that is was a physically cold love due to the risk of blistering damage I knew it was the closest I would ever come to kissing God.

Ah, the coldness. My lover isn't a frigid prude, but he is an empathetic sort, knowing that his burning amore would cause unforgiving pain to me. No protection is sturdy enough to prevent the searing licks of his tight element as his firm clamps squeeze me into a vein bursting lock hold and so with regret he gratefully remains socket-less whilst I fantasise of quad slot chrome jobs.

Crumbs.

This is 'Love' in it's purest form. This is 'Love' as innocence. This is 'Love' with doe-eyes and deep breaths. This might not be a love letter addressed to Russell, but there have been many addressed to him before.

Verses From the Vaults.

Whilst dusting out an old suitcase, as one tends to do on the second Thursday of the month, I came upon an old diary that I used to fill with *ahem* witticisms, fantastical tails of modern madness, beautiful illustrations and...well, this thing I used to do.

I used this diary in 2004 when I was frequently making the arduous train journey from Leeds to London using money that should have been securing my residence at a flat called Kelso Heights, instead I wisely used it to travel to London in style and to hell with the consequences. Anyhow, on these many journeys I would entertain myself with a completely pointless and highly un-amusing game whereabouts I would wait until the announcer called out "We will be arriving into King's Cross Station in approximately five minutes", I would then scramble for my bag, retrieve my diary and scribble out a stream-of-conscious poem or limerick as fast as I could, making no notes or amendments and stopping only when the train stopped.

As you can imagine there are reams and reams of utter fucking nonsense and surreal tripe, along with lists of swear words in different orders, but as I made the journey more often the scribblings got marginally better, to the point where I could write basic verse with arguable clarity and a modicum of schoolyard humour, to the point where I could create an ending as the journey ended, to the point I wrote this Nobel-esque screamer:

'That Monkey and Me'

I was ice-skating on the moons of Mars when I stumbled across a broken vase,

I kicked it about and poked it a bit when out jumped a monkey-Mars-vase-hermit,

A baboon he was who lived on mars,

Y'know, one of them with a big red arse?

He asked me to refrain from kicking his home,

I found it quite odd that his hat was a bone.

"A bone for a hat?" I questioned his taste,

He didn't reply but bit into my face,

I ran and ran and hid in a crater,

But I would regret this sooner rather than later.

He quickly gave chase with his marrow head gear,

I shivered and crouched in mortal fear,

At once I was found by my simian attacker,

As he sunk his teeth into my left knacker!

I yelped in pain and bashed his tits,

I landed around four solid hits,

But his breasts were metal with diamond tips,

A monkey with precious stones for nips.

I looked around for a route of escape,

Some secret tunnel that I might take,

But as I searched around, my clothes all raggedy,

I noticed I was in a nasal cavity!

"This isn't Mars upon where I tread, but a great big bloody giant's head!"

This wasn't the cosmos or outer space,

It was bizarrely a big bugger's face!

I looked at the ape and he looked at me,

I wasn't me and he wasn't he,

I had a grin, grinned it with glee,

'cos he was just a giants flea!

I smashed his teeth with my big strong hand

and ran for help across this bearded land,

Just when I thought I was out of luck,

I made my home in a damp tear duct.

Now I live on a lovely face,

Got myself a lovely, warm place,

Everything has now gone to plan,

'cos these handsome features belong to Morgan Freeman!

There we go ladies and gents, a piece of fine prose that took as long for me to write as it did for you to read, no thought, no pre-emptive mulling over of ideas, just open floodgates and let the shit pour out.

DEEP FRIED SPACE BAR!

In the week that saw the Government call for the appointment of a Broadband Minister, a 'Daily Tooth' mole uncovered top secret files containing more than 8 'stealth policies' including a proposal seemingly from The Rt Hon the Baroness Anelay of St Johns and apparently backed by the Prime Minister to ban the Internet!

'Utterly Flaccid'

The files were recovered from a brand new Range Rover which was found abandoned on a well known 'Chagging' site in Kingsbridge Circus near Romford. 'Chagging' is a relatively new phenomenon purportedly originating in and around public car parks in the Kensington area of London. 'Chaggers', as they are known (usually men and women of high profile), will meet in dimly lit car parks and wooded areas for bouts of a voyeuristic game where each person goes head-to-head in a 'Pokemon' style card challenge, swiping their credit cards through a reader to produce a set of numbers relating to the owners credit and personal wealth. The results are logged and the winner is granted immunity of an undisclosed length of time by the tabloids.

The documents discovered reveal a shocking Tory plan to phase out the Internet in the U.K. within the next 8 months and render it "utterly flaccid for use" by July 2011. According to Science Minister David Willetts the most effective way of enforcing such a ban within a short space of time is to inject hot fat from local chip-shops straight down the fibre optic cables underground, thus not only scalding the information and thereby deforming it, but also solidifying around it and suffocating it.

'Techno-Mental'

The reason for this techno-mental genocide becomes apparent when reading the annotations, presumably written by Cameron, that graffiti the pages of the proposal:

"(the Internet) has become too readily 'surfable' and the poorer end of my market are in danger of being able to educate themselves"

"(the lower classes) now have the ability to wander down any street in the world with the use of Google Street View, bringing their unruly tendencies and foul 'status' hounds to the homes of the astute, wealthy and groomed"

"SamCam is having trouble logging on to Chatroullete (?)"

Other measures to be taken to eradicate digital information include the closure of 'Currys', strict enforcement of colourless, one button fruit machines which are operated with sterling, but pay out with foreign stamps, the reinstatement of abacuses replacing the common and scientific calculator, personalised road maps to replace sat-nav which indicate only the roads you will be assigned, library use granted only by genealogy and birthright and no numbers on front doors even though "they are not yet digital".

'Arse Rinse'

Shocked by these hidden policies 'The Daily Tooth' contacted former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott at his wife's home in Hull for his thoughts on this despicable scheme.

The Daily Tooth: Mr Prescott, having been presented with the evidence recently uncovered how do you stand on the opposition's planned Internet ban?

Mr Prescott: "It's a fucking joke in't it? How can 'e reckon 'e can go and do that, eh?"

TDT: From the documents we've shown you it seems a very real possibility.

JP: "What? Wi' all that chip fat? Bollocks, it won't work. That's not t' say he 'int a soft chuff fer coming out wi' that kind o' tosh, t'internet should be fer everyone, man, child and woman. 'Ere in 'ull it's 'ow we see t'world, go travelling...I'll tell yer summat, if that pig ignorant arse rinse is worried about Goggle Street he's soft as barm, he wants to come down t' real streets! Only last week I had Pauline (Prescott, wife, bread winner) bawling 'er eyes out 'cos some little Billy Casper had taken' wing mirrors off 'er Cortina."

TDT: So the Internet ban will affect you personally then, at a basic, home level?

JP: "Aye, ah should think it will and what it'll boil down to is unthinkable. 'Ow is Pauline goin' t react when she gets in from work an' I'm sat there wi' bare fuckin' cupboards, like Mother fuckin' Hubbard, 'cos ah can't do t'shoppin'? I does it all on t'internet dun't ah? Ah can't be gettin' a 'Day Rider' ticket t'Tesco twice a fuckin' week, I do it all online, it'd skint us on t'bus."

TDT: Looking through these documents, are there any other policies that immediately leap out at you and strike you as shocking?

JP: "Ah dun't know, ah can't see owt now, I've dripped this bloody engine oil all over it, sorry."

'Clegg's own face'

Trying to find an available politician that wasn't tinkering with a lawnmower engine was difficult, so 'The Daily Tooth' logged on, maybe for the last time, to try and email our insiders at No.10 Downing Street.

We asked one of our snoopers if they had access to the current Deputy Prime Minister and Lib-Dem leader Nick Clegg, to see if we could get a few words from him on the subject, however our reply was less than positive and an interview, we were told, would not be forth-coming. According to several eye witnesses a man's malnourished face, presumably Clegg's own face, has been spotted pressed against a tiny attic room window to the rear of No.10.

Informing our mole of this he soon did several circuits of the Prime Minister's house but to no avail, admitting that he "pretty much definitely thinks it must be a secret room, probably accessed through some sort of rotating fireplace or a sham bookcase. Maybe it's just a hologram and he's actually somewhere else. Under the sea. Maybe space."

'Pobolish'

With the political angle bearing no fruit 'The Daily Tooth' met up with fashion designer, movie producer, model and sometime 'musician' Liam Gallagher as he burst through our taxi cab door and demanded us to get out. However, here at 'The Daily Tooth' we don't fight, we cover our heads scream "not the face" and managed to coerce a short interview from the Mancunian mouth breather:

(30 mins later, after explaining who David Cameron is and what the Internet does)

TDT: Do you think the government has the right to abolish the use of the Internet in the U.K.?

LG: "Whaddya mean? Whaddya mean 'abolish'?

TDT: It means 'to get rid of something' to 'ban it'

LG: "Yeah man, like when they tried to pobolish John Lennon for smokin' weed, man. It's fuckin' bang outta order. The Internet right, it's got all the stuff I'm mad for on it, like solitaire, an' a webcam for doin' me hair, an' keys where I type me name 'L.I.A.M.' then print it out on stickers and put it on all me good stuff so our kid don't rob it an'....."

TDT: No, Liam, that's just your computer, not the Internet

L.G: "Whaddya mean?"

TDT: Ok, on a different note, how do you feel about the rumours that Nick Clegg is being hidden away from view, almost smothered some would say, by the Conservative government?

L.G: "Whaddya mean? Don't know nothin' about the Internet, don't want to."

TDT: No, Liam, not the Internet now, but the possibility of illegal imprisonment of the Deputy Prime Minister by the Tories?

L.G: "Yeah man, Tony Blair, man. Our kid went 'round his house y'know? Our kid was madferit but I couldn't be arsed y'know? I've got one of the kids in me ear asking for fucking 'Power Rangers', can't give 'im the 'Power Rangers' 'cos it's where I've hidden me coke, Patsy in me other ear asking for me to shave me beard off, can't shave me beard off 'cos that's where I've hidden me other coke, some blokes at the door asking to be paid 'cos apparently they're in the fucking Oasis or whatever an' I'm just like 'right, fuck off the lot of yer I'm off to Tony Blair's house' get there, too late, they're all packed up...I wake up, it's 2002 an' Ive fuckin' missed everythin'."

TDT: So, no opinions either way then Liam?

L.G: "Whaddya mean? Who the fuck are you?"

...........................................................................................................................................................................

So, there we have it, the voice of the 'people'.

How are you going to cope without the Internet?

Can you cope without the Internet?

This maybe the last thing you ever read on the World Wide Web.

That's a thought, right there.

Sleep safely people of Britain.

Sleep tight.