In a 35-nanosecond burst of laser light, 4.3 megabytes of a color image are burned on a photosensitive DuPont polymer film, rearranging the chemistry into a zebra-striped interference pattern.
The Daily Mirror refers to Mr Mitchell as being "toast" as a result of having to quit his post - and just to make the point, it prints an image of the ex-chief whip burned into a slice of bread.