WookiesLair

I thought it might help to take minds off the goings on at CoMS to hear of a far worse and more traumatic disaster that has befallen me - after all, I've always enjoyed a bit of schadenfreude (have I spelt that right?) so it'd be churlish if I failed to allow others a go.

My toaster packed up! After many years of faithful service, there was a bit of a click and that's it - dead. We made do with the grill for a couple of days, but it's terrible - you have to stand and watch the toast to make sure it doesn't burn, you have to turn it over - it's just all too much.

So I went to Argos and bought another. I was well pleased with it, but when I got it home it didn't work properly. So today I exchanged it - and the NEW one doesn't work properly either. You can imagine, I'm pretty hacked off about the whole thing. I CARE about toast.

Anyhow, I'm emailing this Russell Hobbs bloke who made it, and I'll let you know how I get on - because I know you will want to know.

[quote]
Dear Mr Hobbs, or may I call you Russell?

Yesterday I bought a 4-slice Russell Hobbs toaster from Argos in central Manchester. It really doesn't matter what the model number is, I don't want you to do anything with it. It was £17.99 if that helps.

When I got it home, I ran it without bread, like the instructions said, then I put some bread in it to make toast. I like toast. No, really, I like toast a lot. This is why I bought the toaster. Toasters are important to me, and our previous one had died after many years of service.

Imagine my horror (ok, maybe that's a bit over the top there, but I DO like toast) when I saw that the number two slot (counting from the left) didn't actually produce a nice piece of toast, it produced a piece of hot bread which was toasted on only one side. That's not what I wanted or expected at all.

After a nice cup of tea and a sit down, I felt I'd recovered from all the horror sufficiently to investigate further. The elements to the right hand side of number two slot don't glow as brightly as the others. Now, I'm only guessing here, but I think perhaps that means they aren't as hot. The ones on the left of number three slot were a bit on the dim side too. Didn't seem right to me at all.

Never mind, I thought, Argos are good about returns and it's obviously faulty. So I took it back and exchanged it today. I asked the helpful Argos customer service person if they'd had any others back, and he told me they rarely get toasters back at all.

So, I got my shiny new toaster home, and unpacked it in high excitement. I plugged it in, and went through the whole "element curing" ritual (I love how you imbue the thing with a sense of mystery). I waited impatiently while it cooled down, just like it says (you don't have to tell me to RTFM with something as complex as a toaster) then I whacked a couple of slices of Kingsmill into it.

Imagine my horror (have you guessed where this is going yet?) I got exactly the same results as I had with the first one. Hot bread, toasted on one side. I don't claim to be a toast expert, I don't have a degree in toastology or anything, but I think I'm safe in saying you'd normally expect it to be toasted on both sides. You see, I do have some toasting experience - our previous toaster used to toast both sides of the bread (at the same time!!) and you didn't have to take the toast out and turn it around halfway through or anything complicated like that.

As I said at the outset of this email, I'm not asking you to do anything. I like my toast, and your device seems incapable of making it, so I'll go back to Argos and exchange it for a Kenwood or a Breville or something.

But I'm writing this because I'm curious. Toasters are not exactly the latest word in high-tech. I know you rattle on about "the electronics" in the instructions, but toasters have been around for years. They can't be that hard to manufacture, and Russell Hobbs has been making kitchen appliances for as long as I can remember. I'd have thought you'd have got the hang of it by now.

So why are you marketing a toaster that doesn't make toast? I mean, anybody who doesn't have severe learning difficulties is just going to take it back to where ever they got it and get one that works, aren't they? I'd really love a reply to this, because I think the whole situation is utterly bizarre . As I hope you can tell, I'm not jumping up and down in rage or anything - actually I think it's quite funny - although I won't be buying anything else with Russell Hobbs written on it in a hurry.

The other thing I'm curious about is why you put a label on it which says it must be removed before use, but then use too strong a glue so it won't peel off properly and leaves sticky gunge on the front of the machine. Really, it must take some doing for you to make such an unholy mess of a simple thing like a toaster.

If this ends up in the wrong department, please forward it to somebody who can deal with it, it's the only address I have.

Thanks and regards

Toastless in Lancashire
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