There was a fire in my house this morning. Holy smoke, Batman… the first real fire I’ve actually been through, with real tongues of flames. Everyone was okay because the fire was localised and did not damage as much as two slices of bread (damn them). My toaster and non-symmetrical pieces of bread were to blame. I’ve got a cruddy toaster. It’s a piece of “crepe” if you’ll pardon my French. It’s not heat-activated by a timer but by whether the coiled spring mechanism is in the up or down position. The sliced bread got jammed in the toaster and the heat didn’t turn off because the coil holding the bread didn’t pop up fully. Let me tell you to beware. Do not trust your toaster. Beware, do not trust ugly, suspiciously malformed bread. They may trick you into thinking they’re fine, but may try to ruin you whilst you’re not looking. When your toaster is at work, do not keep your eyes off it for the life of thee! If I could choose to have any new toaster, I would love one of those Buck Rogers inspired toasters that speak to you and toast nice messages onto bread. I would love to market a type of toaster that connects to a phone network and in very much the same way a fax machine prints onto paper, will toast messages sent to you onto slices of bread. Send your loved ones a nice morning message. It would be the best thing since… errr, sliced bread. It would be the SMS of breakfast: edible messages that are great with butter, fruit conserve and honey.

Today is the beginning of 3 weeks of intense laboratory practicals on my course. Kicking and screaming underneath, I will be calmly trying to end the working day as soon as possible. Handling radioactive material? Watch this space.