The Visitor Paradox
We have pointers that show that London is not as busy as it normally is at this time of the year.
- The buses aren’t full.
- Trafalgar Square is emptier than usual.
- The Emirates Air-Line isn’t busy.
- There is moaning about empty restaurants.
- I did try a hotel site and found there are rooms available.
- I bet too, the taxi drivers aren’t happy.
- I’ve not had any difficulty getting a seat on the Underground lately.
On the other hand, the public seats at the venues are generally full and I’ve been in two 70,000 plus crowds at Wembley this week. Some tickets too are unobtainable, although others are still to be picked up in small numbers on the web site.
We won’t really know until we see the full statistics for things like transport spend and bed occupation to know what has actually happened.
But could London have created a totally different type of Olympics to what we’ve seen in the past few Games?
- London has masses of free attractions like museums, galleries and parks. So have many visitors decided that a visit to the National Gallery is better than spending money on an expensive lunch?
- London is a day trip away from a vast area of Northern Europe. So have people decided to fly in or take the train for a day or so and spent the money saved on tickets?
- London has a vast expatriate community. It is for example, the sixth largest French city. So are many of the visitors camping on the floor of their friends and relatives homes? Let’s face it, if one of my sons was living in an Olympic city, that would be the time I’d go.
- It is said that a lot of the empty seats seen are those allocated to sponsors and the Olympic family. So have corporates decided that the sponsorship has been worth it, but allowing their executives to party in these times is not on?
As I said, we won’t know until we see the statistics.
Around Farringdon Station
Yesterday, I was on a 45 bus going up Farringdon Road, just west of the station and took these pictures.
There does seem to be quite a few sites to develop hotels around the important Central London transport interchange, that Farringdon station will become, as I proposed in my post about London’s Airports.
A South African Joke
The British tell Irish jokes, the Dutch tell some about Belgium and all the friends I’ve ever had from Zimbabwe have told jokes about stupid South Africans, usually of Boer ancestry.
Here‘s a true story about some South Africans who went to New Zealand for the rugby. Instead of booking a hotel in Eastbourne, a suburb of Wellington, they booked one in Eastbourne, by the sea in Sussex.
I suppose it could have been worse. There’s another Eastbourne in County Durham, wghich is even further away. They could have watched the athletics yesterday and the Great North Run today, though.
Smokers At The Adelphi
This picture reminds me of something, that you’d perhaps see in Amsterdam.
The Adelphi Hotel with Added Smokers
I also smile at the thought of my twenty-first birthday dinner with C in this hotel. She wore a purple dress from Through The Looking Glass. To say it was short would be an overstatement.
It’s a pity that the dress was thrown out years ago. It might be worth a few bob, as I suspect none from this boutique exist now.
Bedbugs In New York
Two stories from New York catch the eye today; Bedbugs bite into the US economy and the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
The latter of course would have like to be a bedbug, but didn’t go about it in the right way. As he was one of the most important of the wunch of the great and good trying to sort out Greece, we’re all going to pay for his indiscretions. I do hope the man gets a sentence in jail, even if it is less than what the prosecutors seem to be demanding, as he seems to be rather a serial whatsit and we don’t want people like him in public life, if all the stories are true. After all, how can he make a proper decious, if all he’s thinking about is the next legover.
But then the French see things differently and the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair could all lead to some serious problems between the United States and France.
What is so stupid about all this, is that several times in my life, when I’ve stayed in top-class hotels alone, I’ve been offered serious ladies by the staff for my pleasure by the concierge or other staff. I’ve never taken them up on their offer, as I’m not that sort of person. I say person, as once in the Copley Plaza hotel in Boston, I was having a late night drink and talking to the barman, as one does, when he discretely fixed-up the lady at the other end of the bar, with someone twenty or so years her junior. All it took was one quick phone call on his part. And this was in a pre-mobile age. That lady incidentally was French and the barman said she was a regular customer.
So the French do do things differently.
Pension Kalogera on Mykonos
I got picked up by a young lady on Mykonos and I suspect it wasn’t the first time she’d done it either.
But all she wanted to do was sell her Pension to me for the night.
Pension Kalogera, Mykonos
At forty euros for the night and free transport to and from the new port, I couldn’t complain. In fact, I think I should have stayed another night, as Mykonos was a better island at this time of year, than the next one, Tinos.
My Second Time on Syros
I arrived on Syros at nine last night and immediately got a room in the Hotel Hermes. It’s a comfortable hotel with clean modern rooms on the port. I then had supper and slept well. At only 52 euros a night, it is to be recommended.
Hotel Hermes, Syros
Syros seems different and I can’t remember much of the town from when C and I came with the boys in about 1981 or so. We had driven all the way from England in a borrowed car. We stayed in a villa on the beach, run by an eccentric Englishwoman called Lisanne Bates, It was near to a taverna run by a man called Yanni. I doubt I’ll be able to find it though.
The Centrotel, Athens
I’m posting this on a laptop in the breakfast room in the Centrotel in Athens.
Centrotel, Athens
It is a good laptop and guests are free to use it.
But that’s just like the rest of the hotel, quality and comfortable. It has one of the best modern rooms, I’ve ever stayed in. Plus points include.
- Superb lighting. C hated dark hotel rooms. She was right and there are thousands of them.
- Toothbrushes and toothpaste, along with all the other toiletries you might need.
- A whirlpool bath.
- Luxurious towels and dressing gowns.
- A bed for a good night’s sleep.
- Desk and chair.
- A TV that gets a good picture and is properly tuned in.
And all at 75 euros a night. I’ve paid a lot more and not had as good a room.
If the hotel has one problem it is a bit tucked away, but then it’s not far to walk from Larissa Station. It is actually nearer to Victoria Station and downhill from there, but that station is closed for a few months for updating.
I suspect though, taxis would find it easy. Although, I’m against cars in many ways, the hotel does have its own car park.
I would certainly recommend this hotel to anybody, who needed to spend a few nights in Athens.
The Hotel at St. Pancras is Looking Ready
The Renaissance Hotel at St. Pancras appears to be close to opening from this picture.
The Renaissance Hotel at St. Pancras
It would appear to be opening this month.
The Avo Hotel in Dalston Lane
My grandmother was born in either the Balls Pond Road or Dalston Lane, depending whether you believe my mother’s story or the birth records.
As I live round the corner, I’m pleased that someone has seen fit to open a high-class hotel in Dalston Lane. This is the hotel’s web site.
I wish them luck!
The Anonymous Widower 