Can I smell something burning?

Ah, good day to you all! I am very well this week, thank you for asking.
Quite a pleasant journey to and from San Beta, but I won't deny that the
meetings I held there were some of the most objectionable time wasters of my
entire career! The parties held after the GalaGroup Elections are all very
fine and splendid, but the work I have to do subsequent to them is horrible!
Anyway, enough of my personal grumblings, and on with the column!

As you may remember from last week, I told
you that this column - if featured at all this week - would be short. Though
any fears of the column not appearing have now been dispelled, the rumours
of the briefness of the issue are most certainly true. You can't expect me
to get back from San Beta and write you yet another piece of literary
greatness on such short notice, surely! Don't worry too much though: we'll
have another good one for you next week.

So then, I do believe I mentioned my intent on talking to you about toast
and the devices that supposedly create it. The Space Station Big C is, of
course, the most advanced piece of machinery in the Known Universe, and yet
even in that status it is unable to toast bread in a generally convenient
manner. Toasters, as a rule, are not a natural product of evolution, and while
most objects follow my Laws of Infinity ('Anything is possible, just not
very probable' - a law whereby anything can naturally be created, even
nuclear power stations), toasters do not. It is this that keeps me from
accurately creating the perfect lightly-grilled snack.

I will, in fact, go so far as to say that I have not even now stumbled
across an alternate reality/dimension/parallel Universe/whatever you want to
call it, where toasters work with their proper function in mind. A truly
staggering find (or lack of one) if you think about it!

As any great scientist who has studied the field of Grillology will tell
you, there are no scientific facts relating to the burning of toast which
can be explained by variances in heat, pressure, waiting times or indeed the
number of toasting slots there are. The burning of toast - and not just
bread, but also many forms of friable eatables around the Universe - is
simply a Dimensional Constant, as it were, in all realities that I have so
far come across.

Oh, but when I find a Universe that doesn't burn toast, I'll harness the
power for the common good, believe me!

Send me letters, dear friends and neighbours! They give me topics
to linger on, subjects to answer, and matter for everyone to read! A truly
worthwhile cause, I'm sure you'll agree. Anyway, only one letter this week,
once again from the inimitable Ming. A very good choice of subject though.
Read on!

Hello there! Indeed we do, yes! I pride myself on such useful inventions
actually. Provided funding for a lot of my later research and development, I
can tell you! There's a whole range of anti-flip devices we employ here on
the Space Station, ranging from the basic reverse-polarity fields used in
the cafés to the toast-tracking anti-gravity and slow-motion sensors
embedded in the walls of every kitchen!

Talking about flying toast, we had endless fun in one of my earlier
science establishments working at trying to stop said grain-based burnings
from ending up stuck to the ceiling or on the walls opposite. The
movement-dampening field generators were always my favourites: when switched
to the wrong variable, they sent the toast soaring at twice its normal
velocity into the faces of a number of my colleagues! Oh my, what fun!

Anyway, that's it for this week, people. Normal writing capacities will
be returned to me next week. Till then, goodbye, and remember to keep those
butter knives flying!

Yours with blackened breadcrumbs,

- Professor Christopher Tonks

Minister for Science & Technology for the Alabaster House

GalaGroup Overseer to San Beta
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