Unsustainable Toaster Consumption

This week, I got into a bit of a paddy over a new toaster. I had bought it because I liked its style and it was going cheap in a closing-down sale. “What’s wrong with the old one?” said my partner. “Nothing, but…” So, then I felt guilty about squandering the Earth’s resources on profligate consumption. Of course, it could be argued that the people who work in the Chinese toaster factory are grateful to the likes of me. Not so, say those who point out that factory workers are wage-slaves, working for a pittance, victims of the globalising capitalists who have destroyed traditional ways of life by eliminating diversity, beggared whole nations by privatising the people’s assets and wreaked havoc on the natural environment in the process – all the while denying responsibility and avoiding taxation. Still, I have switched to buying eco-friendly laundry-liquid, sold from a barrel. One tries to balance one's account. Meanwhile the toaster remained sullenly in its box while we went away for a couple of days.

In Oxford, with a few hours to spend, I visited the Ashmolean Museum to see some of the objects that were missing from Crete when I was last there. As a matter of interest, I asked an attendant about the correct pronunciation of Ashmolean – whether the stress should be on the second or third syllable. He explained that he could not advise me as English was not his first language: he was more concerned with the outcome of the Brexit ‘negotiations’, which might result in his repatriation. I did learn, however, that the museum was named after Elias Ashmole, who, in 1677, gave his cabinet of curiosities to the university. I would be interested to know just how curious Elias Ashmole was. Would he, if he were alive today, be collecting works by Jeff Koons, the artist currently exhibiting at his eponymous museum? They certainly are curious. There is imagination, skill and craftmanship in all the pieces, but do they conjure art or spectacle? One device that Koons repeatedly employs is a “gazing ball” – a hand-made glass sphere incorporated into the piece. Apparently, its reflective property “…affirms the viewer. It affirms the right here, right now, and from that point you can start to time travel. You can play with metaphysics.”  Whatever: but when I learned that for every gazing ball perfected in his studios, hundreds of flawed ones are discarded as waste, ‘profligate use of resources’ came to mind.

The next day I was in Banbury, where the local museum is just that – local. Nevertheless, it tells an interesting story of the history of the place, a town that prospered due to its strategic location. Prosperity, however, like its big brother neo-liberal capitalism, has its downside. For the sake of economic progress, many historical buildings were demolished, and The Castle Shopping Precinct has obliterated all signs of the impressive castle that once was at the heart of the town. There is still a stone cross at the centre of Banbury but it is not the fabled original: that was destroyed in 1600 by our very own, home-grown Daesh – fanatical Puritans who objected to the idolatrous images engraved upon it. Banbury was a Puritanical hot-bed, as marked by a cartoonist of the time, who portrayed a Banbury Puritan “hanging his cat on Monday for the sin of killing a Mouse on Sunday”. Still, I had a pleasant lunch-time experience at Ye Olde Reine Deer Inn, where I enjoyed traditional food in an unspoiled, period setting, minus ye olde English offhand service.

On returning to our two-toaster home, I tried out the new one and found it to be operationally inferior. So, it is now back in its box and destined for a new, no-toaster home. I consider it a re-cycling of sorts.