Piccadilly Backpackers Hostel - £23 prison bed in "great central location"

My pod bed in a shared room for 6 only cost me £23, which in an area of London full of stereotypical 'trendy' wine bars is very cheap. Therefore I wasn't expecting much. Upon check-in to the hostel I was handed my linen for the night, a shuddering metaphor for what was to come. I decided to use the hostel's wifi connection on my laptop as there were a few things i needed to check up on (I was in London for business, not pleasure after all). It was an infuriating experience, I paid for 30 minutes but only got to use 12 as the connection kept cutting out. Then the true horror of this hostel came when I decided to go to hit the hay. Actually hay would be considered a veritable treat in the Backpacker's, hit the steel would be more appropriate as the mattress was made from solid steel springs and nothing else. Earlier this year I camped in Suffolk in freezing cold temperatures and had a more comfortable night's sleep then than I did here. Then there's the air conditioning. No, not in the room itself, obviously there is none and of course I wasn't expecting there to be. But to rub this fact in just that bit more there is the deafening sound of aircon units for all of the buildings surrounding the hostel. I was completely shattered from a 7 hour drive, yet still couldn't get any sleep. I eventually drifted off at about 3AM, only to be awoken by the feeling of a German man sitting on my feet. It would appear he should have had my "bed" but a bungling admin error meant he had been moved without notification from hostel staff. I genuinely think I could have walked out of the hostel, attempted to rob a passer by in the street and get taken to a nearby police cell and have had a better night's sleep. This hostel is so bad that it's almost as if the owners are punishing you for choosing to stay in their hostel as a result of being too poor to afford a hotel room, which costs a fortune in Piccadilly. If you live in a skip surrounded by monobrowed, permatanned, football shirt wearing Southern Europeans then you'll feel very much at home in the Backpacker's. Much like the city it is located in it is overrated, uncomfortable, unfriendly, impossible.