Technofail

My washing machine caught fire (in a small way) on Saturday, so today I got a new washing machine. Unfortunately all the new ones seem to be so busy saving energy that they take twice as long to do the washing... Very irritating. It also only takes a cold water feed and insists on heating its own water. So it uses expensive electricity instead of the relatively cheap gas heated water in my efficient thermal storage system...

I also noticed this evening that the clock on my VCR isn't set. It doesn't see much use these days, but I've hardly ever seen it without the correct time because it sets itself automatically from teletext. There is not teletext any more (due to the digital switchover of TV) so it's just sitting there waiting for a signal that will never come. I find that rather sad.