If you have a toaster that goes up to six, you know you’re never going to use it above four. The dial might accidentally get turned up high, but that means the toast is going straight in the bin. If you’re desperate (i.e. a student), you might scrape off the top layer of carcinogenic charcoal, but it’s a grim fate most would rather avoid.The thing is, those high settings were put there for a reason. Toaster engineers aren’t dummies. They have degrees in science (and baking, presumably). They know exactly what they’re doing. They know five produces the subtle aroma of melted plastic, and that six is guaranteed to set off alarms at the Office for Chemical and Biological Weapons. So why did they put them there?Sure, there are some toasters made to handle bagels or muffins straight out of the freezer. But the useless settings on toasters have always been there, even before people knew frozen waffles were a thing.But people don’t care. They don’t demand answers as lo

The Pope was sitting on his throne, leaning a little to the side so that his elbow rested on one of the ornately carved armrests. Close up, it was obvious his luscious blond locks were a wig, and that he had a lot of makeup on.“You’re American?” I asked him. “You’re the one who came here with Peter and Zarigold?”The Pope pursed his lip as he looked me over. It was nothing I wasn’t used to. People judged me all the time, trying to work out how the hell I was still alive when so many better people weren’t.“That’s right. Rupert Haines. Nice to meet you.” His non-theatrical voice was quite high and nasally.“And Tupor Haisman?” I was curious about the name change. Why bother?“Just a stage name. More fitting of the setting, I thought. Never liked Rupert, lacks a punch. Not so unusual, really. I mean, you don’t think Zarigold’s her real name, do you.” His eyebrows climbed up his face like he’d revealed some scurrilous gossip.We were getting on v

The Pope led us back towards the heart of the temple. He seemed very happy to do what I asked, which immediately made me suspicious. Nobody was ever happy to follow my orders.The Pope was cooperating, the old gods had let me go with barely a how do you do. No one was this easy-going unless they were up to something.My instinct was not to trust either of them, not to believe any explanations, and to be super-suspicious whenever they let me have my way. Not that my instincts were always right — when it came to anything positive, they were usually very, very wrong — but once the alarm went off, time to start running.Unfortunately, I didn’t understand what was going on well enough to know which direction I should be running in.“Can I have my sword back,” said Jenny as we travelled through numerous corridors.“No, I think I should hang onto it.”“But I’m better at using it.” She was right in that her skills with it were marginally better than mi

There were four lights in all. Three smaller one, and the big one that seemed to do all the talking. The red balls hanging in the air suggested eyes, but not in a Sauron ‘I see everything’ kind of way, more a HAL ‘Hello, Dave’ kind of way. A harmonised version of Daisy, Daisy could break out at any moment.There’s a rumour, strongly denied, that HAL, in the movie 2001, was meant to represent the firm IBM. If you take a letter away from each of the letters in I-B-M you get H-A-L.But it was never the hardware that was going to be the problem for the future of mankind. If you made the same kind of movie today, the insane AI watching your every move would be something more like Facebook, but you’d face the same problem. You couldn’t use the name without getting sued. You’d have to take a letter away from each of its initials to make up a completely fictitious evil company. FB would become... Oh, wait.“You have returned to set us free,” said the big light. There was a

We headed out of the temple with two of our members in wheelbarrows. Normally this would require some explaining. People don’t just push around unconscious bodies in gardening equipment, unless it’s a stag do that’s going very well.In this case, however, we were aided by the presence of druids, the local religious weirdos who everyone did their best to ignore.Coupled with the fact we were coming out of the temple everyone believed could do no wrong (never fails to amaze me how ready the faithful are to confuse turn the other cheek with turn a blind eye) and they assumed we must have had a good reason to use this particular form of public transportation.The crowds in the square simply parted for us as they went about their business. My own thoughts were preoccupied with the strong suspicion that Arthur, the one in the crypt, was another manifestation of Joshaya. The roleplaying was of a very high standard, and the cosmetic touches were really well done, but there