Lifts

i actually really like hotels - except not the Langham in london, which despite the pretty pictures and exorbitant rates, still had me caged in a lift two nights ago for more than an hour.

I shared the exquisitely-decorated (18th century marquette) but incredibly tiny space (max load 6 people, must be thin) with a Norwegian journalist (hunky), a two-year-old (very well behaved, thought he was just in a small room), a demented Irish woman who was CONVINCED we were going to run out of air (and was reaching appropriate levels of panic should this actually have been possible) and her jolly irish husband.

A lift similar to the one at the Langham

As it happens, an hour in the Langham elevator would have been totally fantastic with JUST the Norwegian journalist and not that bad at all with JUST the irish guy (he and i spent much of the hour making prop bets on whether we were going to be winched up or down (both as it happens, not simultaneously).

The moronic staff outside the lift door (once we had been winched up) kept reassuring us that they knew what they were doing as they had been on a training course. shit training course if you ask me as they clearly DIDN'T know what they were doing or we would have been on the same side of the lift door as they were.

Anyway, as the temperature slowly rose to 140 degrees and the staff continued to advise me that the best way to get out of the lift would be if i "collaborated" rather than swear at them.. (i couldn't really see how i could NOT collaborate but still... semantics), we finally convinced them to stop following the training course guidelines and RING THE FUCKING FIRE BRIGADE. who got us out in five minutes.

A fireman

So my lifelong Fireman Rescue Fantasy finally came true (there were five of them - took AGES to kiss them all) and the upside was i get two more FREE nights at the Langham as compensation - although i still don't really understand why, when hotels fuck up (remind me to tell you all about Monte Carlo one day when you look bored enough) they think that MORE nights in their hotel is a great way to make up for it.

soooo... hotels are on my mind ...