where art collides

I’ve stayed in a few nice hotels around the world in my time. There was one I stayed at in Taipei where every room was actually a suite and you could take two interconnecting suites if you needed more space for the family. I can’t remember what it was called now. It had a pool on the roof.

I got there late one night after my flight had been delayed and my luggage failed to make the onward connection from somewhere, Hong Kong maybe. No problem, I thought. It’ll have turned up by the morning. In the meantime I got to my room to find that all it had was a sitting room area and a dining area with a bowl of fruit on the table. Bit odd I thought, never having stayed in a suite before and not really even realising that this is what this room was.

Further exploration revealed that the bedroom was off a changing room that also led to a marble bathroom. I had a choice of one of those posh power showers in its own marble wet enclosure or a separate marble bath. I also had a complete set of toiletries including shaving kit and toothbrush, and a nice bathrobe. Perfect, I didn’t need anything else that night.

I had a bath and a shower and chilled out in the robe. It wasn’t until the next morning that I found the second toilet! Two toilets in a hotel room! It’s never happened since though I have stayed in a few nice gaffs. The great thing about nice hotels is that they usually have nice bars and you can often meet interesting people. Doing it on corporate expenses also allows you to look as if you are loaded on someone else’s dollar.

There was one year where we had the corporate managerial get together at Disneyland Paris. At the time we had three kids including a baby. I drove the family over from the UK and we all crammed into a room with two small double beds. The plan was for the baby to sleep in the pushchair. Whilst I worked the gang would go around the theme park and meet up later. I couldn’t spend all my time with them because after all I was there for the corporate team building. The first night I got in from the bar at about two o’clock in the morning only to find that the baby wasn’t sleeping in the pushchair after all. He was in my space in the bed! It wasn’t a particularly comfortable trip sleep wise but we weren’t complaining as we didn’t normally get to go abroad on our family holidays.

Having a business I own, or at least partly own puts a totally different perspective on things. Working for a corporate I used to stay at the best hotels I could get away with. There was usually a company travel policy but there were always exceptions that meant you could stay somewhere better – the conference hotel for example.

Working for a smaller business means I think a lot more about where to stay. I look for value for money rather than style and image. This doesn’t mean I always stay in poor quality hotels, though it sometimes does mean that. It just means I look for the best deal for the company.

All the travel I used to do did mean I got to accumulate lots of air miles and hotel points. We once used up 360,000 airmiles for four flights to California and spent three weeks travelling around staying at places loaned to us by friends I had made on my travels.

All the travel stopped when we set up business in the UK but I still had a wodge of hotel points that stayed active but never got used. Then last year we decided to go and see the Paul Merton Show in London and took the opportunity to use the points to book a night at the five star Intercontinental Park Lane. I also used Eastcoast train points to procure two first class return tickets to London.

The funny thing was that train was packed (that isn’t the funny bit). It was packed with members of the Unison trade union. They were all on their way to a huge rally in Hyde Park to demonstrate against government job cuts. It just felt odd to know that we were heading to the same place to stay in ostentatious style looking out onto the same park at which they were congregating to protest.

“Let them eat cake” I shouted, ducked and ran off. I didn’t really but it did feel strange.

We had a good time. Went out with friends Graham and Carole to a South Indian Restaurant before going on to the show and finished off at the Phoenix Artist Club. The Phoenix is a class joint in Soho where members of the theatrical profession (and me) go to let our hair down after a long day entertaining.

I had my Christmas bash there last year and we went through 53 bottles of champagne. Quality. I’m beginning to sound like a celebrity jet setter here aint I? I’m not really. Give me a quiet night in with beans and toast and a bit of bacon with a glass of milk any day.

I prefer my bacon fried. It tastes a lot better than when grilled. Trouble with frying is that these days they put so much rubbish into bacon that it often part steams as a result of all that rubbish eeking out into the pan. I refer you to this post on how to cook the perfect bacon sandwich for a guide on the subject.

When my dad was a kid they used to keep a pig in a sty at the bottom of the garden. The pig would eat up all the scraps and leftovers and then at some point it would get slaughtered by a visiting butcher. That all stopped when they introduced the law about all such slaughtering needing to be done in abatoirs.

The meat from the pig would largely be kept for my grandfather who as a miner needed a good supply of protein. My day said that my grandfather was in perfect physical condition from the waist up but that his legs and knees were shot hue to having to work underground on his knees in confined spaces.

My grandfather died “of the dust” when dad was still young. In his last days he would ask the family to open the windows of the cottage to let some air in but the windows would already be open. In those days you seldom saw an old miner. When they died the whole community would turn out to mourn. Dad says there were hundreds at his own dad’s funeral. It left a lasting impression.

It also left dad a lifelong socialist although he didn’t particularly mourn the pit closures and the passing of the coal trade in the UK. It wasn’t a nice job. Dad has a story about a disaster at the Blaenhirwaun pit where my grandfather worked. It was over the road from our house and its shaft was sunk by John Lewis, my great grandfather on my grandmother’s side.

Whilst the disaster was ongoing the whole community turned out to help and sandwiches were provided to all involved to keep them going. The rule was corned beef for everyone unless you had been working underground in which case you could have ham. Dad was dishing out the sandwiches. At one stage some “officials” from the coal board came along, went straight to the front of the queue and demanded ham sandwiches. Dad sent them to the back and told them they could only have corned beef. Hehe. I quite like ham sandwiches myself with nice crusty white bread and butter.

The cottage is still in the family. My anti Mair owns it though it doesn’t get used much nowadays. When we were kids it was our main holiday destination. I would go over the road for walks around the by then disused pit. Not really a very safe thing to do. I’d help Rachel Mary next door pick bits of coal off the tips or slag heaps. RM had to pay for her coal unlike my gran who as a miner’s widow had hers free of charge.

Summer holidays down there would always be pretty similar. Playing cricket in the back garden with dad. Days out on the bus in Llanelli or Swansea. Maybe a walk to the park in Cross Hands. Simple times. Uncomplicated. Not like the electronic fuelled lifestyle of today. We still need to work out how to get the balance right these days. Mind you I am quite possibly looking back through rose tinted spectacles. If I dig deep enough I can also recall the intense boredom of summer holidays or Sunday afternoons spent looking out at the rain with nothing on the box and another game of Monopoly in prospect.

3rd Law Part 31 here

3rd Law Part 33 here