DRINKING IN THE PREMIER INN, BOTLEY
I’ve long been an aficionado of terrible pubs, restaurants, resorts and hotels. I once stayed in a decaying guesthouse in East Looe, whose proprietor showed me his eviction notice when I said I was departing early. As I hastily descended the precipitous steps into town, it crashed into the raging Atlantic.
But even I never imagined that I’d spend an evening in the bar of my local Premier Inn, visible from where I’m now typing this.
In mitigation, my local - The Seacourt Bridge - swings alarmingly from wonderful to awful, without warning. I was there for a friend’s 60th birthday drink - the atmosphere was so dire that someone quipped:
‘We’d be better off in the Premier Inn.’
‘Done!’
Extraordinarily, one of my companions was a regular who ‘loved its cream and purple colour scheme’. In we trooped, jostling through wheeled suitcases and tourists wondering if this was Oxford or South Terminal, Gatwick.
I loved it too, fantasising that my flight to Malaga was about to be called. I looked in vain for the screens showing multiple-delays from French Air-Traffic control fuming over Brexit.
Next up, a review of the fearsome-looking restaurant.
Aaahhhaaaa
I'd like to recommend, without any sarcasm, The Milton Hotel Manchester, Eccles, in the middle of a tower block, not far from the Salford Royal hospital. One of my sons(1) was on a ventilator after a car crash, and I was with my other son(2), basically looking at him and the equipment around him in an ICU.
It was grim. We went back to the Milton and sat at the bar drinking expensive whiskies. Then we went out (a few floors down) for a smoke. We fell into conversation with people who were specialists on agricultural and lorry tyres. Then the doorman came out, asked if the small crowd would like a to try a liquor he'd made out of vodka and nuts. After showing us some pretty impressive art-objects he'd made out plant and glitter, he brought out the drink, and gave everyone a healthy slug. We, kinda, poured out our troubles to each other, finished the bottle, and went back to the bar in a comparatively euphoric state.
I'd previously stayed with son2 in a Premier Inn near Didsbury. That was sheer grim, though the staff were courteous and human. We sat in the car park on our bums in the rain, drinking cans of strong lager. That was bonding too, in a grimmer way.