Nope. That's not touching film. The film would have had to touch for only part of the development time, and none of the bleach/fix time, to look like that. Usually when layers of film touch, you get areas of completely undeveloped, unfixed halide, because none of the chemicals can reach the emulsion where it touches the next layer's base.
What it looks like to me is resting the filled tank on its side for a minimum of about thirty seconds out of the 3:15 development time, one end a little higher than the other, leaving film already wet with developer "high and dry" above the liquid surface. if you're agitating by manually rolling the tank (a legitimate technique) and something interrupts (phone rang?) this could happen.
Woops, "self-winding reel" -- Lab Box or Rondinax? A pause between fill and first rotation could do this (I'm sure the instructions say to rotate several turns immediately after filling, before starting the intermittent rotation for the remainder of the development time). The tilt is just due to the box not being level at the time it stood (perhaps wiping up a spill from overfilling -- liquid will leak out where the shaft goes through the box wall).
This is how the development looks. To me it doesn't look like my developer is going bad, due to the uneven parts being a pattern. Am I right or does it have something to do with the developer or something else I'm overlooking.
