Blogs 2006/08/26

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2006/08/26 - Botley Road, Holiday Inn and Lucy Kellaway

Recently I needed to go to Southampton and stay overnight at a hotel on 'Botley Road'. There are two Botley Roads less than a mile apart and my satnav picked the wrong one - meaning that I wasted over an hour before spotting the error (and got flashed by a speed camera on a dual carriage dual lane road that appears to be 30mph).

Amusingly the wrong Botley Road has been divided by a main road into two halves, so that to get from one half to the other (where the hotel might be) is a drive of several miles.

The hotel room was then too hot, despite the corridor being too cold.

The bed was uncomfortable - I did not sleep well.

I missed breakfast by a couple of minutes and found that the same machine that two minutes ago was serving free coffee now wanted two pounds. The serving staff were unable to help, but suggested that I could make myself a coffee in my room. They couldn't give me any fresh milk though - the kitchen was being 'cleaned'.

In despair I decided to 'collect' myself in my room and my iTunes randomly selected Lucy Kellaway's 'Honking for Harvard' FT.com podcast, which was pure balm.

I now feel that I am not alone in believing that the world has gone mad and have some small faith that it might be alright in the end. That the unthinking idiocy and unquestioning acceptance of most people will be replaced with a bit of common sense.

Fat chance - but here's hoping.