London: Breakfast Tea - April 2006
When in London at meetings or conferences, this time a two day clinical research meeting in High Holbein. I would try and ‘break-out’ to see the city. Especialy here, as I was only around the courner to my old work place near Covent Garden. This time I got two chances to exchange the stale air of a conference room for the traffic fumes of London streets.
One to buy Yorkshire tea. Our stock was almost depleted; therefore I bought over a 1.000 tea bags! - got funny looks from the old dear behind the counter until I explained I'll be taking them home to Germany - then I got even funnier looks.
And the other walk about was for breakfast on the 2nd day, I went into the breakfast room in the hotel and as I was about to take a seat at an empty secluded table, a little man appeared from nowhere enquired how many I was!
[Ed: He was a little put off with the statement until the little man wanted to know if he would be breakfasting alone and not commenting his size.]
Thank you for that..
[Ed: My pleasure]
And with the air of 'here is another one with a blank look', the little man asked me to wait until I was personally shown to a table. As I was waiting I read the board setup at the entrance to the breakfast room. If indicated that the breakfast would cost £16 extra as it wasn't included in the room price! Before the little man turned up again ..
[Ed: He looked like a character out of an American cartoon portraying a French restaurant owner, with waistcoat, fog watch and a set of moustaches that even Poroit would have been proud off]
(?)..
As said before he turned up again I made a bee line for the exit and ended up on Southampton Row in broad daylight with the smell of car fumes mixed with a metallic grime only characteristic of metropolis's of this size.
I 'orientated' myself in the direction of Holborn station and fell into the next sandwich bar that didn't have a corpse slumbering in the door way, another one of the shocks you get being out of the capital for so long. I had my cuppa and a super fry-up: eggs, bacon, beans - the lot + HP sauce (how I miss that) and it "only" depleted me by a fiver.
So back to the hotel for the rest of the conference which I admit was a bit boring. After lunch - which was not, I decided to scarper and changed into rugged street clothes, packed my suit and tie in my case, paid my bill, apologised for blowing up the kettle..
[Ed: Ah yes! We forgot about that didn’t we..]
Well yes ‘we’ did..
When I'm on the road. that is overnight in hotels, I usually go to bed late. It's read or surf the web, watch when in the UK TV without sync or subtitles, all this leads to it invariably getting late usually around two o'clock.
This was the case last night, I fancied a cuppa and a bickey and so I put the kettle on and promptly it put the kettle off and took half the lights and walls sockets with it. I was without TV, my cuppa and the socket for the notebook was also dead.
Either I could get the night porter to put in a new fuse or put out the remaining light and hit the hay, of which I did. It just wasn’t worth the bother.
The hotel was very expensive and I must say a dump - no, not really a dump - just shabby compared to continental hotels of the same price. And anyway upon asking I suspect that the night porter would most likely have ‘re-fused’ to do anything even if he would have understood what I was going on about...
One to buy Yorkshire tea. Our stock was almost depleted; therefore I bought over a 1.000 tea bags! - got funny looks from the old dear behind the counter until I explained I'll be taking them home to Germany - then I got even funnier looks.And the other walk about was for breakfast on the 2nd day, I went into the breakfast room in the hotel and as I was about to take a seat at an empty secluded table, a little man appeared from nowhere enquired how many I was!
[Ed: He was a little put off with the statement until the little man wanted to know if he would be breakfasting alone and not commenting his size.]
Thank you for that..
[Ed: My pleasure]
And with the air of 'here is another one with a blank look', the little man asked me to wait until I was personally shown to a table. As I was waiting I read the board setup at the entrance to the breakfast room. If indicated that the breakfast would cost £16 extra as it wasn't included in the room price! Before the little man turned up again ..
[Ed: He looked like a character out of an American cartoon portraying a French restaurant owner, with waistcoat, fog watch and a set of moustaches that even Poroit would have been proud off]
(?)..
As said before he turned up again I made a bee line for the exit and ended up on Southampton Row in broad daylight with the smell of car fumes mixed with a metallic grime only characteristic of metropolis's of this size. I 'orientated' myself in the direction of Holborn station and fell into the next sandwich bar that didn't have a corpse slumbering in the door way, another one of the shocks you get being out of the capital for so long. I had my cuppa and a super fry-up: eggs, bacon, beans - the lot + HP sauce (how I miss that) and it "only" depleted me by a fiver.
So back to the hotel for the rest of the conference which I admit was a bit boring. After lunch - which was not, I decided to scarper and changed into rugged street clothes, packed my suit and tie in my case, paid my bill, apologised for blowing up the kettle..
[Ed: Ah yes! We forgot about that didn’t we..]
Well yes ‘we’ did..
When I'm on the road. that is overnight in hotels, I usually go to bed late. It's read or surf the web, watch when in the UK TV without sync or subtitles, all this leads to it invariably getting late usually around two o'clock. This was the case last night, I fancied a cuppa and a bickey and so I put the kettle on and promptly it put the kettle off and took half the lights and walls sockets with it. I was without TV, my cuppa and the socket for the notebook was also dead.
Either I could get the night porter to put in a new fuse or put out the remaining light and hit the hay, of which I did. It just wasn’t worth the bother.
The hotel was very expensive and I must say a dump - no, not really a dump - just shabby compared to continental hotels of the same price. And anyway upon asking I suspect that the night porter would most likely have ‘re-fused’ to do anything even if he would have understood what I was going on about...
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