Waiter, There's A Man In My Bed

If, as Graham Norton said, the Irish regard Father Ted as a rather amusing documentary, then anyone who has stayed in as many hotels as I have regards Fawlty Towers in much the same way.
This thought was prompted by James' recent blogs about his stays in hotels while he and his fellow writers put the finishing touches to the next series of Green Wing. That's a pleasing thought, by the way. Many of us are gagging for it. And quite looking forward to the next series of Green Wing too.

I once checked into an English seaside hotel and had the following conversation with the receptionist:
Me: I have a room booked. Third floor, with a sea view.
Receptionist: Ah yes. (handing me the keys) The lift's on your left. Your room's on the second floor.
Me: But I was told when I booked it was on the third floor.
Receptionist: No. The second floor. But it does have a sea view.
Me: Oh. Hang on, it says on the keys Room 318. That suggests to me that the room is on the third floor.
Receptionist (irritated and indignant): Well yes. It's on the third floor up. But it's the second floor from the top.

The old saying that if you wish to eat well in England you should eat breakfast three times a day is not always true. At one hotel I started to tuck into my Full English Breakfast when I noticed that the bacon was not just undercooked but virtually raw. I looked around the dining room and saw other people having whispered conversations about their bacon before pushing it to the sides of their plates. This being England, nobody said anything to the staff. But when the waitress came to collect my plate I said, by way of explanation and in suitably apologetic tones, "I'm sorry, I couldn't eat my bacon. I don't think it had been cooked."
The waitress gave me a 'who do you think you are' look and said angrily: "I know. Nobody else could eat their bacon this morning either."

One of the most potentially embarrassing experiences I was unaware of until told about it the next day. Although my real name is not much more common in England than Lupin, a man with both the same surname and Christian name as myself checked into the hotel where I was staying. He arrived very late at night. The Night Porter found the name in the book and took him to my room. Because it was late he decided to go straight to bed. He undressed and lifted the duvet to reveal what in other circumstances might have been the pleasing and seductive sight of myself asleep in my Y Fronts.
Perhaps fortunately, I had spent the evening in the hotel bar and was enjoying if not the sleep of the just then certainly the sleep of the pissed. I may have murmured 'Not tonight, I'm too tired" but remained blissfully unaware of this close encounter with my namesake until the staff had to explain the giggling that greeted my appearance in the lobby the next morning.
I like to think that he paraphrased the old joke and said "There's a man in my bed!"
"Keep your voice down, Sir, or they'll all be wanting one."

I had a different kind of lucky escape when I stayed in one of Manchester's most famous hotels. I've never put my shoes outside the room at night because I don't like the thought of someone else cleaning my shoes. This isn't because I'm a virtuoso with the Cherry Blossom but because I have a pathetic ideological aversion to people carrying out servile, personal chores on my behalf. I know this is stupid and would mean that all the shoe shine boys would starve to death and that any houseboy I employed would lead the life of Riley, watching Trisha and Neighbours all day while I slaved over a hot ironing board. But I can't help myself.
On this occasion it was fortuitous. When eating my breakfast the next morning I watched a succession of businessmen in expensive suits enter the dining room in their stockinged feet. Some Mancunian scally had got into the hotel during the night and stolen all the shoes from outside the bedrooms.
I stetched my legs out into the gangway, wiggled my Oxford brogues and smiled smugly. Somewhere in the bowels of the hotel an underpaid skivvy had passed an unusually restful night and for someone in Manchester Father Christmas had arrived early bearing dozens of pairs of expensive and highly saleable shoes.