The Hotel Inspector – II
As noted at the end of last week, we spent the weekend in our favourite getaway location in rural eastern England. I've mentioned it before, but I always feel a bit reluctant to name it, as we want to keep it a bit special and 'just for us'. Once again, it didn't let us down, on what was our seventh visit, including the week of the honeymoon. As I drive into the car park I feel myself relaxing, and as I step into one of the wonderful airy rooms, with the sunlight streaming in and the Massed Birdsong Choir providing the accompaniment, I just feel wonderful every single time. It never, ever fails.
And as always, all the other elements lived up to expectations. The staff are uniformly the friendliest and most professional I ever encounter, and being remembered by everyone is a wonderful extra detail. The food, full of locally sourced produce, was as great as ever, and no matter the request, any little thing is always handled with a smile and a willingness to help that I could wish for from some of the 'bigger name' establishments I stay in.
And so we were more than a little put out by the pair of couples we found ourselves sitting next to at breakfast on Saturday. A more miserable, carping, utterly negative group it would be impossible to imagine. After ordering items not on the menu, they assumed that their request wouldn't be met, and when it was, were totally graceless about it. When the waitress didn't hear a request first time, they practically shouted it and then criticised the 'terrible standard' of the staff. They found something to complain about in every single detail of their stay and were so resolutely negative that it was actually depressing to hear it. And also annoying, as there wasn't a single real foundation for any of their whinges. They were also just plain rude, barging past us when they left without an 'excuse me' or an apology.
We were prepared, if fate had made it look likely that we'd be positioned next to them for dinner that night, to ask to be seated elsewhere, and to make it abundantly clear why we were asking should the need arise. It didn't, but even from across the room, their vile miasma permeated, and their moans could still occasionally be heard. The Mrs ended up having a brief conversation with one of the women at one point later, and it turns out it's not just the hotel they're negative about; it's everything. They just seem to be a set of people who are 100% negative in their outlook who have gravitated together and are probably repeatedly reinforcing each other.
So really, if they already know they're going to find everything grim and unsatisfactory, even when it's as good as it gets, why bother going away at all and inflicting their gloom on the rest of us?
The Hotel Inspector – I
It's probably safe to say that I spend more nights a year in hotel rooms than the average person. Between frequent work trips and the fact that The Mrs and I try to get away several times a year, I'm more familiar than many with the varying quality of hotel bathroom soap 
So while I wouldn't dream of attempting to suggest I have anything like an objective reviewer's eye, let alone a professional view, I nevertheless have opinions, and as always am happy to air them. So this is the first of three postings on the subject of hotels and hotel guests.
To begin with, I want to talk about the amount of waste produced by hotels. Pretty much every hotel these days offers the veneer of evironmental respectability with a note in the bathroom offering the choice not to have clean towels every day. But frequently that's as far as the veneer goes, and other waste is happily indulged in.
A classic example is the very swanky Dublin hotel I stayed in recently. I was there for two nights, and on the first night opened a bar of soap and used some of the very nice shower gel they'd provided. When the room was serviced, both of these were replaced, and the ones I'd opened and barely used disappeared. My assumption is that the housekeeping staff aren't making off home with partially used soap, and they clearly can't be reused for other guests, so they must have been binned. Which is just outrageous. Multiply my experience by the hundred-plus rooms in the hotel over seven nights a week and that's a lot of little bits of wastage adding up to a large total. I could cite plenty more examples from my travels, but that's the most recent in my mind.
I've reached the point where I want to start leaving notes saying "Please do not waste these things on my behalf - I really don't mind using the samebar of soap and shower gel two days running."
A Dark Day
So MPs (those unusually bothering to hang around in the House on a sunny Friday when England are having a good day at the cricket and there's the weekend trip to the constituency to be started) have moved a step closer to exempting themselves from the Freedom of Information Act for the most transparently feeble of reasons.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Gordon Brown is reported as not opposing the move. Once, I thought it possible that he might distance himself from the everyday layers of misdirection and outright deceit which have come to characterise government and Parliament under his predecessor's leadership. But seeing him blithely following the lie which the Labour Party is perpetuating, that it's not possible for Blair to step aside immediately and so avoid this "Farewell Tour" interregnum, all hope of that is dashed.
For the record, Blair can hop in a taxi to Buckingham Palace and offer his resignation to The Queen any old time he likes, and she would then be able to invite Brown to form an administration with equal ease. I know this, you know this - I have a feeling that the Labour Party probably knows it too.
Bliss Is Looming
We're off for a slightly post-My Beloved's birthday weekend away tomorrow. Two nights in our favourite out of town haunt, possibly doing little more than eating their fab food and chilling in our lovely garden room, given the weather forecast.
Oh well - there are worse ways of passing the time.
Like watching Embarrassing Illnesses, the appalling new series on Channel 4 that this evening featured a nice clear shot of someone's well developed haemorrhoids about three minutes in. No, I'm not kidding, though I dearly wish I was.
The Unelected, Leading The Unelectable?
The news that Gordon Brown was happy to ascend to the Labour leadership, and by extension the leadership of the country, should obviously come as no surprise to one as cynical about human nature as I, but it is nevertheless, a very shoddy state of affairs. To be running the country with no more mandate than that a bunch of MPs were willing to nominate him to stand in the election to do so gives him pretty much no credibility at all, on any level. Even the credibility he's garnered from (mostly) managing the economy well for ten years isn't really a significant bonus to his status to do a completely different job.
And to be happy to lead the country with no mandate of any kind, even an election of his own party, must surely show him up as having a complete lack of substance, or courage of his convictions.
Let's be clear: I don't want a Conservative government, and I'm not mad-keen on the prospect of a Menzies Campbell-led Liberal government.
My problem is that I also don't want this kind of Labour government.
All Change (ish)
I've upgraded to WordPress version 2.2, a mere couple of days after its release, and had a bit of a nightmare getting everything back the way it's supposed to be, but I think I'm there now.
Along the way, as I was recreating/reinstalling some widgets, I discovered one that adds a Sphere icon to the end of posts over 30 words long, which when clicked on will attempt to show a list of other blogs and sites which are also talking about the subject covered. It seems to work to a degree, but the links from the Kew posting, for example, seem a bit random...
I'll see how it shapes up over the next few weeks.
Kew
I've been to Kew Gardens a grand total of twice in about ten years, both times in the company of broadly the same group of people.
Once was a night time visit when they were displaying some Chihuly glass, which was very impressive both in itself and also in the setting. The second time was on Sunday for a mass birthday meeting for The Mrs and several of his friends who are all hitting their mid-30s with him this month. Rain mostly held off long enough for good walks around, and we had a great cartoon moment when toddler Joshua, who'd been splashing happily through puddles, took off his wellies and about a pint of water was poured out of each one.
It was a very good, but curiously tiring, afternoon.
Belgrade Next Year Then
We voted for Serbia, though as they got no points from the UK that was a waste. Still, for all that there was clearly bloc(k) voting within their region I'm happy that they won because for the first time in a while an actually really good song won the Song Contest. And thank heaven for it, or the Ukranian drag monstrosity would have won.
Entertaining to have been commenting throughout on the Millarworld Eurovision thread too
Booing In The Hall!
It's hardly in keeping with the Eurovision spirit, but equally it's not that surprising that after the ten winning songs from the Eurovision semi-final were announced, some in the arena reacted with boos. Of twenty eight songs performed, none of the winners were from Western European countries, and no matter how subjective the view, some of them were clearly stronger than those which have gone through to Saturday's final. I personally couldn't stand the supposed favourite from Switzerland, but even so I know it should have got through ahead of most of those selected, likewise The Netherlands, Andorra, and probably Norway at least. Two of those that did get through, from Belarus and Serbia, I completely agree are worthy finalists, but something's not right with the system when that kind of imbalance happens.
Even the official Eurovision sites are reporting on the anger the result produced.