Silavent Automatic Hand Dryer

If at some point in your life, you are woken every morning for a whole week by the shrill scream of your lover as he or she gleefully jabs you in the ribs for hours on end with a sharpened broom handle, then after seven days of constant torment reveals that they've been having an affair with your younger sibling for the past six months, they have slashed the tyres on your car, been sick in your shoes and stolen all your cake, then you will, I think, be able to comprehend the sheer level of annoyance and deceit employed by this hand dryer.

Can be found: 72 Dyke Road Drive, Brighton, England.

Auto: Yes

Rating: 2.00008/10

World Dryer AirMax

The AirMax (having conquered the world of sporting footwear) marches about the place like a buffed-up, sexy gloss-ball. This is the more successful, dryer-in-the-city to the comparatively plain Warner Howard World Dryer. This is the Patrick Bateman of hand dryers. 

Can be found: Welcome Break, Oxford, England.

Auto: Yes

Rating: 9.1/10

Heatstore HS 5200

A bit like spending two minutes intermittently laughing and vomiting in five second bursts. The inconsistency of this shit dryer made me snap the legs off a bastard.

Can be found: The Tin Drum, Dyke Road, Brighton, England.

Auto: Yes

1.1/10

Vortice AHDR Automatic

The Vortice Automatic positions you within a circle of your closest friends, all of whom are chanting your name in a low, hushed voice as you stand in the centre wearing nought but a pair of red swimming trunks. Weird, embarrassing, and chilly. 

Can be found: The Good Companion, Brighton, England.

Auto: Yes

Rating: 1.5/10

Mediclinics Saniflow E05C

Despite the name resembling something more akin to a brand of rectal-hose, this hand dryer has one shiny spout. Shiny like the glare of the sun in the cracked wing mirror of a second-hand Ford Cortina. Shiny.

Can be found: [currently unavailable] 

Auto: No

Rating: 6.42424/10

Vortice (Manual)

Welcome, if you will, the bastard son of a Dust-Buster and an Apple Mac. I didn't blink, I didn't cry, I didn't smile, but ultimately, my hands were dry.  Use the generous drying-time to drift off and imagine a world without helicopters.

Can be found: Belushi's, Paris, France.

Auto: No 

Rating: 7/10

Sofmat Optima

It felt like pressing my hands against a fat dog's back beside an empty tunnel. Made me lose faith in humanity.

Can be found: Le Royal Café, Paris, France.

Auto: Yes

Rating: 1.3/10

Saniflow E88ACS Automatic

Graceful, confident but undeniably modest. The brushed aluminium will bring memories of the cold winter of 1992. Very much the 'Sunday' of the hand dryer week. Really very nice indeed.

Can be found: McDonalds, Vienna, Austria.

Auto: Yes

Rating: 6.999/10

Stiebel Eltron Electric

Like engaging in conversation with an anorexic kettle in a coma - weak, hot, unresponsive.

Can be found: Savarin Café, Prague, Czech Republic.

Auto: Yes

Rating: 3.001/10

World Dryer A48 - Warner Howard Group

Classic, strong, romantic even, the World Dryer represents unashamed masculinity in hand dryer engineering. Pressing the hard, strong reflective button feels like gently squeezing the cold bicep of an Olympic weight-lifter. The air-flow blasts forth from within like some man with a bad-temper, but it flows across the fingers with the sensation of groping old hot butter. Your time spent with the World Dryer may be hard, it may be unforgiving, but you will leave its company feeling a sense of achievement, of catharsis and of sheer wonderment. 

Can be found: The Quays, Holloway Road, London, England.

Auto: No

Rating: 8/10