The Hotel – Personal Preferences

WARNING: Anyone who is sick of privileged, affluent foreigners moaning about how difficult life is in a 4 star hotel when most of the local population is stuggling to make ends meet had better move on now. In my defence I can only say I don’t really have one. But here goes anyway. 

Invariably the first thing I do when I check into a hotel is remove their clutter (shown above) so I can install my own. I must admit that this hotel is not too bad and for some reason there isn't a Gideon's Bible. Anyway, enough of being accommodating and back to the rant: Hotels are always trying to sell you something and to this end they fill your room with crap. 

Menus, drinks lists, restaurant and room service information. Feedback forms offering you 50 different ways of saying how brilliant the hotel is. Folders of information about their overpriced domestic services, leaflets about local attractions, adverts for pay-per-view movies costing the same price as a portable DVD player and 37 pirated DVDs etc. 

Then there are the leaflets and notices telling you how to spend a fortune moaning about the cost of hotel Internet connections to your so-called ‘friends’ on Facebook, and the small anvil thing with the Ethernet cable connector. And the phone instructions which give you the direct dialling code for Antarctica but fail to tell you how to call another room “Oh! You have to go through the switchboard “. “WELL WHY DON’T YOU PUT THAT ON THE LIST AS WELL YOU NUMPTY-BUCKET!” It appears that no one has ever wanted to call another room. 

So I put them all in a drawer and hope never to see them again. Occasionally they stay there, but usually housekeeping will scatter them around the room again and I have to coral them in the drawer – again. And it’s no good hiding them, housekeeping has a massive supply of spares.

Then there is the TV remote. I leave it somewhere near the bed when I go out and like to find it there when I get back. They, on the other hand, like to have it in the little plastic dispenser by the TV. WHY? IT’S A BLOODY REMOTE – REMOTE MEANS IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE BY THE TV.

 

And what is it with that strip of fabric they lay across the foot of the bed in Premier Inns (and this delightful hostelry)? Do they think a bit of gaudy rag will raise the star rating? It may make the room look neat for a passing photographer doing a publicity shot, but apart from that it is COMPLETELY BLOODY USELESS and is another thing that just needs putting away.

 

And why do they have to tidy up your stuff in the bathroom? It’s not a shop or a dentist’s surgery. JUST LEAVE MY STUFF WHERE IT IS!

And while they are at it STOP FOLDING THE TOILET PAPER INTO A NEAT LITTLE POINT AND TUCKING BACK IN THE ROLL. It’s just a nuisance. Look, I don’t mind if you do it when the room is empty, so that the incoming guest does not have to suffer the horror of a loose piece of bog paper wafting in the breeze but once the guest has untucked it they should have ownership of the matter and if they want it folded up to prevent some scatological trauma tell them to do it themselves.

In addition to the usual stuff, The Al Falaj has presented me with a 200+ page book celebrating the 40th Natrional Day. (see blog National Day if you still care about anything having read this far). 

It is a sumptuous publication called TRIBUTE (in caps) with hundreds of quality photos of Oman which means that I don't have to do any tedious sightseeing, I just have take photos of the photos - using the automatic macro on my Canon S95 (have I mentioned this before?) - and say I've been there. Brilliant! And always good to end on a positive note.

[Is that it? Ed.] Probably not, but I need a rest. Do you realise that I will have to pay £12 a kilo in excess baggage to get that damn book home, bloody cheek. Now where's the bloody remote - oh yes, and how dull is CNN and BBC 24 Hour bloody tedious sodding news nonsense. [Arrrgghhh! Click. Ed.]