in hotel · 2007-01-22 22:38

So far, 15 nights in 3 hotels, 4 stays in 3 weeks. By Friday, 19 nights in 4 hotels, 5 check ins. My recent room at the London Hilton Metropole was an exact mirror image of the previous one; like waking in a slightly alternate reality, with added bruised knees.

Exotic TV channels of Arabic cooking programmes. No one had bothered to fix Sky News, frozen on a moment of crashed reality last Saturday, the music videos of Viva have sounded only of static for the last 6 months.

I am a connoisseur of hotel bathroom pedal bins – and hate them all. Even Brabantia, the only make of choice, are often ill-weighted and ill-positioned, they flip when pressed, rather than flip up. They all clang against the generic bathroom tiling. Showers that leak water, baths that only overflow, air conditioning that whines unpredicatbly enough to keep you awake with their talking. Ghostly semi-autonomous tissue boxes, glasses. Not quite personal. Personality stripped away.

Best breakfasts, super breakfasts, terrible breakfasts. Too much branding and distant corporate perky stares at 7 o’clock in the morning.

However, I now have keys again, my possessions have weathered the storms across the seas, and should arrive in Clapham Junction on Friday. I’m just in the wrong city. Four more nights, two more hotels.

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