Enough time has now passed, from the now infamous Toastergate, for us to look back and reflect on what actually happened.
The first mention of the scandal was in the article, “Toaster Amnesty Hits Warrington”, which initially seemed like a straightforward measure to combat crime. A representative of the scheme, a Mr Shaun Kelly of Liverpool, claimed that toasters were being collected in order to curb violent toaster-based violence.
Any regular readers will know that the Sherby57 team take nothing at face value. After creating the Sherby57 Tactical Toaster Task Force (aka The S57TTTF), and setting them loose of the mean streets of ‘The Wire’ (not to be confused with Baltimore), it was only a day later that the cracks in the story became apparent. We then published the article “Toast Conspiracy?“, which compared a similar removal of toasters in Aberdeen. Reported in The Daily Telegraph, the story documents how Aberdeen Council have removed toasters from all offices, in a (sad) attempt at saving some money. Could a similar thing be happening in Warrington? It was difficult to prove.
From this point forward, many differing theories arose on what was actually going on. One of the first steps we took was to speak to our Goot Investigative Team (GIT) and see if the Evil One was likely to be involved. They had heard some rumours that The Crow was developing a technique to use 3rd party firmware on standard toasters to turn them in to a £600 model. We looked on E-Bay but could find no evidence for this. The Crow is a tricky customer though, and so we cannot write this theory off. Please let us know if you have bought a toaster recently in suspicious circumstances.
Many of the other theories came from avid Sherby57 readers. Aside from useless comments from the likes of Bettys, who said, “Make mine a bagel, lightly browned”, many interesting ideas came to light.
Dixonsmafia, was quick to praise the scheme in it’s original intent, commenting on other white goods-based crime, “A member of staff in our office was enjoying a cool glass of water when these thugs burst in and put the water in a kettle. The member of staff had no option but to settle for a hot drink!”. This gave some credence to the original story, but things were soon to change.
Someone calling themselves ‘I wish to remain anonymous’, believed it was actually a hidden agenda from the government called “Toaster Evaluation” linked to the controversial staff-robbing national Job Evaluation scheme. This was quickly followed up by ‘Disgruntled Toast Fan’, who exclaimed, “Is it a “Toast Restructure”? or a “Re-organisation of Toasters”?”. Both of these citizens seem to believe that this is a sinister government programme, possibly attempting to remove toast from our diets.
The Invisible College, spouted some metaphysical stuff that made my head ache. And maybe that was the point. After wearing a fiction-suit of David Dickinson for a few days before returning to the supercontext, I have to say that they may actually have a point.
Next, we were joined by Miss Dionne Warwick (no relation to the singer), who won the 2007 Sherby for Comment of the Year. Miss Warwick attempted to enrich the debate by quoting some of the many times that toast appears in Shakespeare. Who could forget immortal lines such as, “Toast, Toast! My kingdom for Toast!”, and ““Is this Toast which I see before me…”? She then further enlivens the debate by giving us some scientific information on the nature of toast. What is this mysterious Maillard reaction to which she speaks? Is it something to do with ducks? Well I’ll just have to check on Wikipedia. I’ve just checked and it’s some kind of chemical reaction. You can read about it here. And it’s nothing to do with ducks.
The final theory comes from Russell Hobbs, whose ideas deserve to be repeated in full:
“Speculation is rife that the WBC toasters were removed in order to prevent potentially earth destroying crumb collision experiments by maverick scientists attempting to create the conditions that existed a billionth of a second after the first bread was toasted. Government scientists fear such experiments could result in the creation of black holes, a condition that occurs when the bread becomes superheated and turns black before igniting, sometimes resulting in a hole in the bread.
It was initially believed that effects of these “black holes“ could be negated by an over-application of butter and jam, but further scientific speculation has suggested that they could result in the END OF THE WORLD !!!
News channels have reported that a group involved in a failed attempt at using crumb collision technology in a café on Fleetwood pier yesterday have fled to Europe and gone underground. Intelligence reports expect them to be making further attempts today.”
Russell certainly provides us with the most thought through theory, and by some twisted logic, it makes it most likely to be true. The “WBC” of which he writes is thought to be the avant-garde pseudo-terror cell, the Warrington Bread Collective. One theory suggests that the WBC is secretly controlled by none other than…Goot The Crow. It’s like spirals within cogs, within windmills, within wheels, all wrapped up in a juicy melon. We’re through the looking glass here people.
The quest will never end until we have the answers we need and deserve. If you have any further insights to the whole affair, please leave a comment. Although we don’t have any factual answers, I did attempt to solve the emotional quandary in the moving poem, Toast Me. I hope it helps.
Until next time, keep toasting.
