h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Didn't Merkin Muffley feature in Dr. Strangelove?

He certainly did, as the President of America, and played perfectly by Peter Sellers.

The example I looked at had the bad review that shocked me most backed up by photographs. If you can see that there is mould on the bathroom walls, bits of rubbish on top of the cupboards and a puddle outside the shower when you've finished, no number of favourable reviews can really be considered to hold water.

Photos are good, in that they do actually show what the room looks like. It's just that when you actually get into the room, it is like the photo, but there are lots of things that aren't conveyed by a picture (such as tiny loos, lousy matresses ... in both senses of the word!... ) and a small room can be made to look bigger with a wide-angle lens and windows open onto a sunny outside.

We recently stayed at a brilliant place - absolutely breathtakingly palace-like. I didn't read the reviews until we got home. The worst one complained about the bad condition of the bathroom fittings, the loudness of the air-conditioning and a few other things. We had noticed all these but had just switched off the air-conditioning and opened the window, not really minded the crack in the washbasin - after all it was very old, and who uses a washbasin except to clean their teeth?

So,while some negative things really bother some people and, in their way, are justified complaints, others may notice them but not have their stay spoiled by them.

It's all subjective and, summing up, these reviews are, as Orcus says, probably just a waste of webspace. In fact, back before the internet, in the days of magazine and guide book assessments or even word-of-mouth, it probably wasn't any different.