Ticket machines

Whether it's for trains, buses or festivals. Without a human to watch them, they just do not do their job.

I arrived at the tiny station where I board the train on some mornings, put my card in the machine, chose the most common ticket type for that line, and paid. Job done.

The next chap has an OAP card that entitles him to discount. Where's the slot for that? There isn't one.

Next chap wants a ticket that isn't listed. Where's the button for that? There isn't one.

It's the first day on the job for the ticket machine, and there's no human there to guide people who don't know what they're doing.

Robots will be taking over the planet at eating our souls next, you wait and see.

Useage of the pub amenities

Have you ever seen people use them?

I'm not talking about the toilets as such. I'm not talking about the bar itself.

I'm talking about its badly placed and inconceivably garish machines placed in the gents that accept only pound coins and give no change.

Condom machines. Mint machines.

I can picture it now.

Good ol' Dave has been speaking to a woman all night. For him, 9 pints of cider entices him to believe that the woman he's talking to who has no teeth and a hair lip is the most beautiful girl in the pub, and the rest of the room has faded to black.

He heads off to the toilets with his 'tail up', looking to expell urine and gain some extra courage.

Whilst stood at the urinal psyching himself up, he sees a large white box next to the football fixtures for the next month and an advert for a scooter taxi service. The white box only accepts pounds. The white box dispenses his ticket to getting his end away.

Tickler condoms.

How could he possibly go wrong?

Or, better still, the white box contains Smint Mints. In this case, he's struck gold!

If both exist, he's over the moon. With the spending of just two pounds, he's covered the need for flavoured enjoyment in both areas.

Or then again, perhaps his mistress will see what he's just purchased, and can't believe he's been so cheeky to believe that covering his cider breath with a curious mint-smelling odour whilst clumsily tucking away his chocolate black-ribbed knobbler that he optimistically believes will cover his inevitable Brewer's Droop will permit entry to the hanger, so to speak.

Why not just do away with them while they're only distasteful and before they're just plain disgraceful?