HOW much!?!?

Off to London for a couple of days, the first time in many weeks. It's still noisy, expensive, and dirty -- you're better off in Winchester, the best place to live in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland and second only to Edinburgh in the UK. Anyway, we were up in town for a fun event, The Economist Innovation Awards, with a lovely dinner at the Science Museum. Great food, fun exhibits to look at, and interesting people to chat to -- there was a Nobel prize winner at our table; I didn't tell him that physics made me cry at O level and that I only got a C in it. All in all, an impressive evening that made me realize just how little I contribute to the world. I'm not sure that "does little harm" is really good enough.

However, the hotel we stayed in was something else. Very large, comfortable rooms; friendly staff and great service; beautiful public spaces. But. The rack rate for our room was 480 English pounds. Let me spell that out for you, in the manner of unbelievable football scores on Grandstand. FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHTY POUNDS.* Not only did it not have an external window that you could open, resulting in a bizarre microclimate that left you both cold and lacking any form of moisture in your body, but you didn't get:

1. An iron and ironing board.
2. A hairdryer, other than the fixed one on the bathroom wall -- that sort that wheezes over you like an asthmatic badger.
3. Tea and cofffe-making facilities.

In fairness, the hotel staff sent up the first two to our room on request, albeit a particularly useless iron that emitted little heat and removed few crumples. But still -- it's a city centre hotel, presumably full of reasonably well-dressed people who want to have clothes that look somewhat less crumpled after a journey. An iron and ironing board in each room does not seem like an unreasonable request. But my particular bugbear is the lack of a kettle and assorted sachets for making hot drinks. This is England! We drink tea! We like -- nay, need -- to have a cup of tea when we wake up in the morning, and charging several quid to send one up to your room on top of the FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHTY POUNDS rack rate is outrageous!

I wish I had an adequate form of protest, but given that we weren't paying and will certainly never stay at that sort of hotel under our own steam, my options are somewhat limited.

*Of course, the people who paid for the room almost certainly got a much better rate, but still. That's a lot of money.