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Bond's habits would be best plotted on a Venn diagram: circles for addictions, vices, guilty pleasures, coping strategies and trained responses, one of the most simple guilty pleasures was what he was planning to indulge at the moment. Crumpets, burnt black on the outside, invoking memories of winter afternoons with his parents: coming home to Skyfall and toasting them crowded round the open fire- charring in seconds from the intense heat. It was never the same in London using a toaster but he always turned the setting to max anyway. What he wasn't expecting was the toaster to start telling him to 'tremble before his electric heating coil of doom'.
“Q?!”
The toaster moved on to threats of world domination and/or destruction.
“Q!”
“What?!” The toaster asked for a death ray.
“Oh.. good god do you enjoy eating charcoal?” He reach out and turned the setting down slightly. The dialogue stopped. “Er... sorry about that.”
“What the hell was that about?”
“A week's mandatory leave about 2 years ago, I played a video game but it I finished it too soon and modified the toaster to use some of the game audio for a laugh, it only does it on maximum setting. Never thought anyone actually used that.”
The statement was punctuated by the crumpets popping up, done to an espresso brown. Bond's buttered them still casting a questioning eye at both the toaster and its owner. “Any other appliances going to make me wish I'd worn my gun?”
“Nothing else makes threats... though you might want it if you turn the toaster down to 'warm bread' - you'll get 'Talkie Toaster' from Red Dwarf.”
“Oh god, 'Howdy doodly do'?” Bond asked with mingled disbelief and distaste.
“Yep” Pleased at least Bond obviously knew the show pretty well. It boded well for their compatibility.
“Why?”
“A practical joke while I was at uni, I had a friend who actually used the 1 setting, I thought I'd encourage them to eat real toast, they made me swap toasters or never sleep again.”
“And already having a talking toaster of course you added the comically overdone death threat dialogue, you didn't actually give it a death ray at least... did you?”
“No, that's in light fitting. Well it's just a laser not a specific 'death ray', better overview of the room there.”