Into the Asylums

Hospital 1:

An imposing Victorian brick building that brings the word "asylum" instantly to mind on first sight. This architecture and the dated building features inside, on some level undermine attempts to update the way we treat the differently mentalled. It is a grim place where institutional power is wielded and the abberant of our society are smashed into a medically-defined round hole with a bloody great hammer made of drugs.

Sorry, wrong blog. For more on that see
"mybiasedpoliticalopinionsaboutmentalhealthservicesthatyoullprobablydisagreewith.blogspot.com"

For reasons not related to my sanity I am in this hospital. Being the sort of person who passes urine, I visited the facilities. Here I was met with:

Now in keeping with ancient radiators and sash windows that between them make it impossible for the building to maintain a comfortable temperature, here we have a delightfully retro design. In the photo below you can see the deathless, and punctuation-free, phrase "on touch off." I took a photo, noted that the drier didn't work, and wondered if an enterprising patient had sabotaged the drier as a comment about the fact that they, like the drier had now been rendered, were powerless.

On revisiting the facilities I realised I had missed a vital clue - on touch off was a button! I had viewed it as a strange flowchart or a process because of which I had assumed first the drier would come on then I would touch something or other and then the drier would turn off. If it had said touch, on, touch, off I might have understood.


Or maybe just put a bloody circle with a line at the bottom like every other power switch? Perhaps I'm easily baffled.

If you read this blog regularly Tom then you know how I feel about buttons vs sensors. But the brilliance of on touch off is it just carries on until you make it stop. If I so wished I could keep my hands under there for 10 minutes. Why not go mad? An hour. 2 hours! Drain the national grid for my dry hands! 

Temperature and power were adaqute enough but factoring in this control and for being the only drier I've seen with a Zen Koan for a power button this is a drier that will be swirling round my head like a cryptic crossword clue for many days yet. 

Also folks witness my first video for the blog which although terrible quality demonstrates on touch off nicely:

Hospital 2:

An imposing Victorian brick building that brings the word "asylum" instantly to mind on first sight. This architecture and the dated building features inside, on some level undermine attempts to update the way we treat the differently mentalled. It is a grim place where institutional power is wielded and the abberant of our society are smashed into a medically-defined round hole with a bloody great hammer made of drugs.

For reasons not related to my sanity I am in this hospital. Being the sort of person who passes urine, I visited the facilities. Here I was met with the Heatrae Sadia No Touch which aside from sounding like a stripper and the standard strip club instruction had some lovely pictorial instructions which are better shown than explained. Thus I took a photo, and then noted that the drier didn't work, and wondered if an enterprising patient had sabotaged the drier as a comment about the fact that they, like the drier had now been rendered, were powerless.

This last picture depicts one dryer feature that hasn't come up yet on this blog - the duel outlet that allows the user at a flip to dry face or hands. Being a gentleman of sound breeding and character naturally I would never lower myself to washing my face in a public lavatory, rendering this feature useless to me.


But how do you feel about this dear readers? I've had no comments on this blog yet (almost as if was a blog about a triviality) so please. Comment below. Duel outlets for changing between face and hands:.Yay or nay? The forum starts here.

E2: Judgement Day

Regular readers may recall that not long ago I came across a hand dryer that would not even turn on - ironically named the Eterna. You may have thought it unfair to rate a hand dryer when it hasn't even had the chance to prove itself. After all I'm meant to be looking at drying time, air pressure, speed, control. Not turning on is more likely a fault with the establishment not the machine.

So when I chanced upon another Eterna t'other night (at Flathouse, which does some decent grub by the way) my first thought was "redemption." This was the Eterna's chance to wow me. And did it? Not exactly.

First I must say the design was very promising. A shiny silver box with sleek curves it looks not unlike a robot's head. Already I was excited.

And then that awful moment of truth as a pathetic fart of lukewarm air hits your hands and you know you're going to be there for at least a minute. This was the Eterna's comeback tour! And disappointment overcame me as I gave up and used some paper towels which were also in the WC. Perhaps even the restaurant owners realised what a damp squib the Eterna was if they saw fit to have a stock of these ready. 

Which makes me wonder, why not get a better hand dryer in the first place? It's a pretty new restaurant so they were probably worrying about decor, having a hygienic kitchen, promotion/advertising, start up costs, menu, ensuring disabled access, overheads etc.

And readers what a sad world it is when these are all seen as more important than having dry hands.

Newlec Electrical: Clash of Titans

It's Sunday afternoon, I'm about to play badminton. I'm pumped, stretched, psyched and I'm listening to the training montage from Rocky IV.



I feel invincible. But I have a weakness, an Achilles heel. I cannot play badminton with damp hands. And that's why before the big game there's another match - in the sports hall ghetto where the real men fight - the bogs.

I square up to my opponent. It doesn't look impressive. I size it up. No button, that gives it a point straight away. I serve with a taunt about Dyson airblades that the Newlec can't possibly hit back. 1 all. "Newlec Electrical." I think that's probably a tautology, unless the "lec" is short for election. I doubt that. This is about heat. This is about pressure. Votes don't count here. No democracy. 2-1 to me.

Next serve goes to the Newlec and I'm immediately floored by the roar it makes as it fires up. I know it's to intimidate me but by god it works. What a sound. An easy point for the Newlec. 2 all.




The next point goes to me as the Newlec fails to reach a decent temperature. Lukewarm might beat a newbie to the hand dryer review game but not an old pro like me. It's 3-2 to me and I'm starting to smell victory.

As the drying time drags on I know I've secured my lead with another point. Newlec keeps roaring but now it's not working - I know its game and I know that this dryer is all mouth and no trousers. I'm taunting it now, "Go on impress me!" but it's all over. The Newlec has stopped roaring and gone silent. I know its guilty secret. It stands there looking embarrassed as I show it my hands. It can see the droplets on there. Water it should have seen off. Bad luck kid.

As a final insult I slowly and deliberately wipe my hands on my trousers in front of it. If the Newlec can't finish the job I sure as hell can.

Nice try kid. But you're gonna have to try a bit harder to best this old man. See you next season. If you dare.


Incidentally I lost at badminton.

Eterna, the Ten Bells

What's in a name?

In this case when I saw that I was about to use an Eterna my mind filled with delightful thoughts of eternal heat, air pressure & crisply dried hands in perpetuity.

Imagine my disgust when I found this piece of rubbish wouldn't even turn on.

I tried the switch, I waved my hands in the vicinity of anything that could conceivably have been a sensor. And then I wiped my hands on the back of my jeans and a little piece of me died.

Manrose, Jurnets Bar

Another interesting name here, seemingly trying to bridge the masculine/feminine dichotomy.

This led me to expect a combination of brute strength air pressure followed by a gentle massaging of my hands to finish it off.

Unfortunately the Manrose was about as good as my terrible stereotyping of what masculine/feminine means. I think the company knew this, knew that women can be strong just as men can be weak & dichotomies are ridiculous since all humans exist on a spectrum really and it is these binaries that cause so much grief for people. It's a shame that having that knowledge didn't make the designer better at making hand dryers. Because yes folks you guessed it. ANOTHER BUTTON.

It's almost not worth going on, air pressure's OK, drying time & heat average. This puts our dear Boylily, our cocktulip firmly in the realm of middle management. A shame since Jurnets is such a fine establishment. Usually a poor hand drying experience would lead me to recommend an immediate and lasting boycott of the place that saw fit to install anything less than an xcelerator or Airfury. In this case I urge you to keep going there, buying drinks, soaking up the medieval crypt atmosphere, watching the lovely bands & then maybe your cash can go towards ridding Jurnets of the Malepansy forever.

World Dryer - Cinema Middle Management

World Dryer - Odeon Cinema

The World Dryer claims a great many things and unfortunately fails to deliver satisfactorily on any of them. First of all, and we've been here before, activating it involves pressing a big button. Now men know this, female readers might not, but to a lot of men "washing your hands" means "holding your hands under the tap for as little time as possible in case they melt."

And as for soap? Many people seem to be afraid of it, as though soap is some kind of abrasive chemical that upon contact disintegrates flesh & leaves two gently steaming skeletal hands clacking against the porcelain of the sink.

How people come up with ideas like this I don't know.

The outcome of this is that people touch that big button with their hands riddled with e-coli, AIDS & god knows what other diseases. Kwashiorkor probably. 
Have I made this clear? I don't want to press this satanic plague knob

of death! And yet the World Dryer claims in actual text written on the actual machine that you can actually read that using it is more hygienic than paper towels. Who wrote this nonsense?! Never have I heard such obvious balderdash & pifflesquit.

As if this wasn't enough, drying time is weak & at its hottest it's barely lukewarm. I had such high hopes, especially as last time I visited the cinema they had Xcelerators in.

Unfortunately the world is clogged up with these average dryers which I shall henceforth refer to as Middle Management.

Next time I go to the cinema I'm taking a towel.

TRIANGULUS

Leaving aside any analysis of the capitalist horrors of McDonalds as an organisation, and of the nutritional value of its food, it does know a good hand dryer when it sees one. And given that one McDonalds is exactly like another that means a good hand-dryer in every city across the world. I don't know about you but I for one find that reassuring. And for a company with a mascot that could give Chuck Norris coulrophobia to be reassuring is no easy task. 

Now this dryer isn't the best for drying time. Nor is it the best for heat or air pressure.

Don't get me wrong, it's certainly well above average. But what really excited me about this unit was its aesthetics. A sleek, shiny, compact black unit that looks like it comes straight out of Blade Runner or Minority Report. I wouldn't be surprised if it was stealing my biodata as I used it. And I'd let it.

Knowing that text would spoil its slinky beauty the makers have opted not to include any. All that breaks the ebony expanse of its sexy contours is a single triangular light which is red at resting and a neon green when in use. Based on this I have opted to name it the Triangulus. Ah, sweet sweet Triangulus. J'adore.

In case you didn't guess, I love the Triangulus. Most times I come out of a toilet I feel underwhelmed. In all too rare occasions I come out with properly dried hands. But it is only after using the Triangulus that, just for a few glorious moments, I feel I have entered the future.