Cracks appear in mirrored monolith.

Byline: Andrew Pain

Middlesbrough's new mirrored monolith is cracking up.

Since the unveiling of the Spectra-txt tower on April 15, the statue has received so many messages it has not had a chance to wipe its own memory, which it is supposed to do every two days.

Without the chance to do this the system has become overloaded and has broken down.

Middlesbrough Council spokesman Mike Clarke said: "It seems to have been a victim of its own success. Its a complicated piece of equipment. Inside is a modem that receives the texts. Because so many people have been texting it from all over the world it has been working non-stop which means its self-cleansing mechanism has not kicked in.

"We are going to alter the timing programme so it can run for longer. We anticipate it will be up and running very soon. It has caught people's imagination and hopefully we can accommodate this extra interest."

Designer Peter Freeman was brought in to fix the problem and has promised council chiefs the tower will run for six years.

The pounds 90,000 post was partly paid for with European money.

Spectra-txt is a 10m high, four-sided, mirrored post, covered in more than 1,000 fibre optic lights.

One of the first text messages sent to the post asking it to change colour came from Tahiti - where Captain Cook visited 236 years to the day earlier.