I Hate Manchester

"Are you expecting some kind of menage-a-trois or something?" I shouted, and I'm afraid to say I hurled the door key across the reception desk at the smug, dour, two young scousers sitting behind it.

It was 3.30am Turkey time. The first taxi at Manchester Airport had refused to take us to our hotel because 'they didn't know where it was'.  The second taxi kept driving for miles whilst I repeated 'Altrincham Road' over and over again, and dropped us at what turned out to be the wrong hotel in the opposite direction of where we were trying to go.  It took ages for another taxi to arrive and £30 later we arrived at the Britannia Airport Inn, just down the road from the airport, as I had planned, complete with indoor swimming pool. 

Avoid! Avoid! Avoid!

So it's 3.30am as I ask for the pre-booked triple room.  There's already been two cock-ups because the bookers originally booked me into the Gatwick Airport Inn, lucky I noticed, and then charged me £20 for the booking, instead of £117, which I kindly pointed out.  They unkindly didnt stick to the £20 quote (which I would have done, as I aim to offer a platinum service). The two young men surrupticiously glance at each other.

We open the bedroom door and it's one large bed with three sets of pillows on it. Revered Son is an enormous hairy 15 yr old, and Beloved Daughter scratches her eczma all night and kicks you in the head.  This is a no-go, and basically, dishonest.

So, half an hour later, they sort us into three rooms, but mine hasn't been cleaned.  Even I can't sleep in a stranger's sheets and use their towels.

So finally we are settled, as dawn begins to break. My alarm clock is packed in Beloved Daughter's suitcase on the other side of the hotel.  But I cant order an alarm call because the phone clearly hasn't worked for months.

In the morning the tv remote doesn't work.

At breakfast they have run out of mugs, bread (bread??!!) and bowls, my fruit salad is fizzy, and they've still got an hour to go. Meanwhile I hear that my neighbours' hair-dryer has caught fire. Then I see a rat running along the window-sill - oh no it's not, its's a MINK??!!

So I pop along for my recuperating swim and of course, there's no water in the pool.

You couldn't make it up.  And I haven't.