dualit and touch

'Right that's it! That's the last time I'm burning myself trying to make toast under this stooopid grill' I yelled as the grill pan hit the deck sending three slices of Warburtons medium skittering across the kitchen floor leaving comet-like trails of crumbs in their wake.

This is the third time in the last fortnight that this has happened and, frankly, I've no fingerprints left... well not on my fingers anyway, they're stuck on the side of the grill pan. I reckon that I'm now an ideal candidate to carry out the perfect crime. Yes, I think a spell of cat-burglary could be right up my street. Actually, probably best if it's right up someone else's street isn't it? No good knowing your victims is it? And even worse when they recognise you... and I think they would recognise me even without fingerprints.

Anyway... 'We're going to get a new toaster now!' I continued, and within half an hour we were on the road to Leeds. Actually, we were going to Leeds anyway to visit the Royal Armouries so I thought we could take a quick detour into the city centre to a great kitchenware emporium which we've used before and pick up some new toasterage.

In fact, we'd tried to get one from Curry's a few days earlier but, my goodness, don't they look cheap and shoddy? Actually, whilst I'm on the subject of Curry's.. and Comet for that matter.. how come when you wander in for a browse, when you're killing time, when you're pretending to be customer so you can leave your car on their car-park while you go to the footy, how come there's always at least three pre-pubescent or, conversely, silver-haired sales assistants asking you if you need help? Then, when you go in and you do need something, can you find a single living soul in the place? You could dress up as Batman and climb up on the balcony before anyone'd notice. Then eventually, when they've talked you down and sold you whatever shoddily manufactured piece of crap you came in for, it invariably fails to work or has a vital component missing when you get home. You phone them, only for them to direct your sorry arse back to their store to return it only to discover that they don't have a replacement in stock. Yes, they can deliver it, for an extra £12.50 and NO THEY BLOODY WELL CAN'T TELL YOU WHETHER IT'LL BE MORNING OR AFTERNOON SO TAKE THE WHOLE DAY OFF SUCKER!! Whatever happened to service?

Phew! So back to the great kitchenware emporium in Leeds. Well, we went in and, to be fair, we arrived with the intention of buying a decent toaster, so it was a pretty easy sale. However, the guy in the store did a great job of showing us the Dualit range, talking up the features in an unpatronising way, selling us a pink'un (as seen above) and cross-selling us a wok! So far so good. We put the stuff in the boot and headed off to the Armouries to feast on three millennia of warfare, which was great but, hey, there's only so many guns and swords you can see before you want to use one just to bring the show to a close.

Eventually, we got home after waxing lyrical about what a great guy the salesman was and how nice it was to see someone good at their job instead of the normal poorly trained, demotivated slack-arses you get at, ohhh I dunno, say Curry's or Comet. Then we open the boxes to find that he's given us the wrong toaster. Yes it's pink, but it's the mega 4 slice job which, yes, costs more but just isn't the one we want. And it doesn't come with a little cage for making those toasted sandwiches which have fillings that remove the skin off your lips (maybe I could keep the skin in a matchbox with my fingerprints).

By now it's 6pm on Sunday, so the shop is well shut... so it'll be a trip back on Monday. At least there's the wok. Hang on a minute! There's no knob for the lid. Doh! So after all our gushing about the good service from this place, we were now £150+ lighter of wallet with not much to show for it.

But wait. Cheer up. There's a happy ending after all. On calling the store next day and telling them of their calamitous gaffe, not only do they call the wok manufacturer to dispatch a new knob post-haste, they send one of their staff over to collect the wrong toaster and present us with the right one... a round trip of some 60 miles! Haha! Service isn't dead after all.