The news really came out of the purple

I love the German word ver­bes­se­rungs­be­dürf­tig, meaning in need of improvement. I'm not German, but thought this was a cracking word.

Every site I normally use is awful.

Why, oh why, is Steam being impossible for me to sign up to?

The installer worked fine. I try to sign up for my son with his email and it tells me I have an account. I do the forgot password thing and it sends an email, then when I click the link it says I don't have an account.

Why would it send me the forgot password email?

I then try another email, follow the set up, click the email to verify. All good. When I set up my name, no matter what name I use it says available, but when I try to proceed it says Only use A-Z and 1-9, which each of the dozen names I tried was.

Then it takes me back and I try again. It tells me I have an account and to click the email verification link. I click the new link and it tells me I'm already signed up. Then I try the name thing again and the same nonsense happens.

And the extremely contrived captcha... I'm clearly not a robot or I would have given up due to the illogical nature of the process.

What the hell?

They wouldn't be as annoying as they are if the people playing the games in the ads made good decisions. Seeing people fail through obvious bad choices is way more irksome than someone smashing it.

My 9 year old wants a gaming laptop and my laptop spec knowledge is minimal. He wants to play Fortnite and Minecraft and the like, nothing fancy. Any ideas re good laptops to buy, or good places to look? I'm in the UK and my budget is 300 quid tops, ideally less.