Last year the washing machines got broken into by some hard pipe-hittin’ scallies with a pair of pliers and adidas tracksuits, so the hall bought new, token operated ones. They were designed by idiots.

The machine lies completely dead until you put a token into the separate box on top. Then the green light comes on and the screen on the token receptacle starts a five minute countdown. To what?! Am I meant to put another token in within five minutes or I lose the first? Am I meant to start the machine within five minutes? Does the machine only run for five minutes, and every second I spend wondering about the countdown is a second lost?

I pressed the ‘go’ button on the machine and it started spinning and watering and doing its stuff. The timer continued to count down. A display on the washing machine said “30 minutes”. After a while this increased to “35 minutes”. I waited for the timer to reach zero. It did. Nothing happened. The machine increased its own display to “40 minutes”. I left, and came back half an hour later. The clothes seemed washed and the machine was dead, so the numbers on both screens must’ve been completely irrelevant. Needless to say there were no instructions anywhere.

Friday tip: read NTK before B3ta. It’s a lot less depressing that way round.

Answerphone message: “Oh hello, I’m just ringing up regarding the swords that you had on ebay…”

Listen for yourself

For the record, I’ve never bought or sold anything on ebay, swords or otherwise.

Breathless magazine prose is disgusting. This review of the Two Towers extended DVD is particularly horrible:

What follows is nothing less than a truly epic battle, in which the fate of both Middle-earth and the Quest of the Ring literally hang in the balance. Trust me when I say, it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before on film.

First, the nitpick: if something is literally hanging in the balance, I expect to see the goddamn scales of justice.

Second, the final battle is like nothing I’ve ever seen before on film except the final battle from Army of Darkness, of which it was a complete ripoff/homage. Probably a homage actually, knowing the director’s background in horror.