The Joy of Flats...
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 9:24PM During the week, I like nothing more than to play Hotel Roulette, and find myself staying at a new location, in a new hotel or apartment. Nothing distracts you more from the drudgery of life than change. (Just ask the folks in large companies who give themselves new jobtitles each year)
This week (as well as last), I stayed at the rather posh Marlin apartments. Lovely folks. Well, aside from the time in Stratford where the hot water failed for 24 hours and I couldnt leave the apartment. But - hey - aside from that.
So this week, I'm sitting in this flat, feeling really warm. Finally pull off my shoes and burn my feet on the floor. Yes, the previous berk had not figured out how to set the thermostat on the underfloor heating and had just cranked the lot up to 11. And left it on forever. Nice. Even the glue under the carpet was starting to get a bit whiffy. No worries, I lept (or hopped or skipped) to action, turned all the themostats down, and thought nothing more of it.
Until last night where the flat was an icebox. Leaving my coat on in bed. Not pleasant. Cranked it all back up again - no - nothing doing. Till I opened the flat this evening to feel - yes - you guessed it - a heatwave.
Anywhoo. I've found the manual for the flat and the three thermostats are all from a Deviheat 550 programmable system. So. If you're picking any system to control your underfloor heating - and you actually want to live in the place you're installing this in - then dont pick this one. Its utter shit. You will die of extreme tempertatures before you can command it. Its an invention from Belizub himself.
And so this evening, after beating the heatwave, I thought I'd use the microwave. So lets see. Unwrap/stab the M&S meal for one (sad lonely person), chuck it in the microwave, set the timer, press go. Drink a glass of wine, come back, enjoy the meal.
Ah. No. This microwave - a AEG MC1751/MC1761E 'Microwave oven' - is completely impossible to operate. You're talking to a man who used to debug serial cable issues with satelite communications. Who thinks nothing of hotwiring some Cat6 cabling, or indeed finding the hidden reset sequence on a BMW 5-Series (Its the start button and trunk-open button, BTW).
No. My meal for singleton/sad person is stubbornly cold. I'm still hungry. The wine is disappearing at an alarming rate, and here in the frozen concrete wilderness of Docklands, its dark and the morlocks are roaming the streets. I shall just starve.
Readers, should you ever wish to install household appliances, use the 'drunk' test. You can be as drunk as an IBM salesguy in the fourth quarter who's just finally landed the QuickR/Sametime part of his quota, and yet should still be able to operate your house. Nothing less.
Update: Clearly, I shall never starve. Just stabbing the 'quick start' button gives you 30 seconds on full. So another 8 times, and my meal shall be ready.. Bwa-hahaha. But yeah. AEG. Its shit. Hang your head in shame.
Reader Comments (1)
If the core function of a common device can not immediately and intuitively be operated without trial and error or reading a manual, it is defective and should be recalled...along with the people who designed [sic] it.