Mundanes. *Pfft*
Mar. 19th, 2007 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mad_andyWell, here I sits, in the bar at the Old Swan Hotel, in Harrogate.
And people are avoiding me like whoah.
Half an hour ago the bar was at its fullest. Mundanes (which is to say, normal people) were even clustering in groups along the walls to drink and bray inanities at each other.
Yours truly, however, has two whole sofas allllllllllllllllll to herself.
Is it the boots? Is it the maiden shirt? Is it the ink?
All three, gentle reader, for I am stuck in Conference Hell.
Harrogate. Spa town, jewel of Victoriana in England's chilly North; notorious for its conference and meetings facilities, its fine hotels and elegant streets and parks...
...and I'm going steadily insane here.
See, I knew it was a nice hotel. OK, nice hotel, big deal. So I just chucked my normal gear in a bag and jumped in the car. My biggest concern was whether Sam The Bastard would have bust the lid of his viv by the time I got home.
Gets here, and experienced a mild sinking feeling on seeing the front of the hotel. Big, imposing, Victorian, stone etc etc. Yeah. Nice.
People are staring at the jacket by the time we hit the foyer.
By the time we've checked in several of the staff have made an excuse to wander through and have a look. I bolt for the room.
Where I promptly discover that I am not allowed to smoke.
Cue one sense of humour failure. I had assumed - silly me - that Slay, having been married to a smoker for seven years, would have remembered to check. He hadn't. And when he did check - by which time I had stormed off to the bar in a temper - he discovered that the hotel does not allow smoking in any of the rooms. Had I known this, I may well have thought twice about coming here, but there you are. Because if I get overwhelmed by too many Normal People (AKA Mundanes) I had thought that I could zip back to the room and lurk, comfortable with my tea and coffee making facilities and my smokes.
No.
The barman wouldn't give me a drink until he saw the key card, so one swiftly snarled phone call to my beloved sorted that. Then, of course, I saw how much they charge down here in the bar for a cup of tea.
Y'all know how I love my tea, right?
When one asks for tea here, one gets:
A pot containing tea (two bags).
A pot of similar size containing hot water.
A bowl of sugar cubes.
A pot of milk.
A biscuit. (Shortbread, so far.)
Oh, and a cup and saucer and a spoon.
Careful manipulation of the above fluids gives one three cups of very pleasant tea. Which does not excuse the price of - get this - THREE POUNDS AND SIXTY PENCE that they charge for the damn stuff.
This is extortion.
Anyway, the staring begins the second I take my jacket off. I realise that I'm surrounded by Mundanes, I'm here for almost four days, and I have no internet access.
Cue a certain amount of begging. See, my dearly beloved husband does not approve of t-mobile's wi-fi hotspot thingy. I think he's just a tightarse and doesn't like to pay for anything but that's neither here nor there; having the 'net would at least assuage some of the feeling of isolation I was beginning to experience.
Anyway, while he mulled this over we decided to get some dinner. First night, so we'd eat in the hotel; expensive, but we could expense his food so fuck it. Luckily, I'd brought a plain shirt - albeit a teeny weeny strappy thing - so I changed for dinner.
So had the othyer guests in the restaurant, but their outfits veered more toward the twinset-and-pearls.
The couple next to us couldn't speak when we walked in. The staff were fine, never turned a hair; the well-bred horror from the next table over, however, more than made up for that. Quite made my night, actually. Think they got indigestion.
The meal, by the by, was excellent. The wine was fantastic.
The bill was terrifying.
And so to bed. I discovered that, although the elegant sash window opened a mere four inches this was enough to allow me to smoke through without setting off the smoke alarm. Strike one for the underdog.
Good shower, hard bed - with sheets and blankets, have these people never heard of duvets? - and pillows fulla rocks. Why are hotel pillows always fulla rocks?
Anyway.
Slay snores. Badly.
So after not getting much sleep I accompanied him down to breakfast. Staff, as ever, never turned a hair; the guests, on the other hand, stared and stared and stared.
Fuck 'em. I refuse to be intimidated. I am a writer and an artist and you are little people with little lives struggling along in dull little jobs to pay the man, so fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
Bloody marvellous breakfast. Best black pudding ever.
The barman didn't ask for my room card this time. You remember me from yesterday, huh? I said. He sort of grinned.
I am, I added with a wink, a little noticeable.
He agreed, and I got an especially nice biscuit. I think he likes me.
Slay went to his conference and I went back to bed. Do Not Disturb sign on the door, nice quiet room, slept through till three. Woke up to discover that my body had decided to betray me and bring the monthly visitor a week early, bastard; which meant I was going to have to go out in the snow to find a chemist.
Fine, endured the usual stares going through reception - swung my hips and banged down my boot heels - and plunged into the snow to explore the town centre.
Now, it's a beautiful little city. Really. Parks and gardens and soaring Victorian architecture. Designer shops - designer everything, from Agas to beds to lamps - but anything useful?
No.
You want a range cooker, or a repro Tiffany lamp or a four poster bed? No problem. You want to sip tea while you listen to a string quartet? Yup. Mooch an art gallery? The number you can choose from is enormous. Hand made chocolates? Jewellry?
Fucking sanitary towels?
Mile and a half that way and keep your head down going through the door, thank you.
Found an HMV. Which stocked no Iron Maiden at all.
...
OMG, I'm in Mainstream Hell.
I did discover a little record shop which had a teeny weeny metal section at the back. So I bought Breed 77's new album because I hadn't spent enough money to annoy Slay with, and it was a good price. The staff were almost Too Cool to serve me, but it's hard to ignore a squat, bad tempered metalhead with a scowl that can cut steel and Boots Ov Doom.
So I stomped back to the hotel - snow had stopped - taking note of the bar that advertised 'Vodka And Food' for later. Got another cup of tea (and a biscuit) from my charming little barman, and sulked in a corner until Slay came back from his conference. Now, before he left I'd extracted from him a grudging agreement that I could use the wireless internet in the hotel.
On my return to Mundane Central, I'd asked the woman on reception how you used it, and was given a leaflet and told that it only worked downstairs.
*Groan*
Anyway, got the laptop set up, followed the instructions in the leaflet and --
Nuffink.
Still fighting the Silicon Bastard when Slay came back; he tried too, and we managed to get it to work. For about a minute a half. Long enough to see Rockfic, read a thread and then - nope, nothing.
Cue another sense of humour failure.
By now we were both hungry, so we dumped everything back in the room and headed off to find somewhere for dinner that was a more reasonable price and wasn't full of people staring at me as though I had two heads. Not easy round here, but we discovered a chain pub with disinterested staff and average food.
Mission accomplished.
We had tried the 'Vodka And Food' place, but they stopped doing food at eight. It was five past when we checked, and the chef had given up and gone home.
Anyway, we stopped off there on the way back. Why? Because we wanted a drink and Wetherspoon's is crap, plus the barman in Revolution (Vodka bar) was incredibly cute.
My reasoning, not Slay's.
In fact, if I can get a picture of him tomorrow, I will - because he looks like something out of a manga. Really. Slim, pretty, blonde. Oh my.
So we tried a cocktail each (cue whining from Slay about price). I tell you what, I didn't know so many bloody varieties of vodka existed. I could get totally bladdered there every night for a lifetime and not try them all.
Anyway, the cute barman? Mixes a wicked Bloody Mary. Spicy as fuck.
I got dragged out after that, and we settled once more in the bar. Where I got stared at a lot. Although Slay did actually manage to work out what the problem was with this laptop, and I'm now happily ensconced upon Teh Itarwebz where people don't stare at me like some sort of exotic bug.
I paid for 24 hours access. For ten quid.
Daylight fucking robbery.
So I think I shall have more tea - although the biscuit supply has dried up, bastards - then go back and lie in the dark listening to Slay snore.
Dear all, wish you were here...!
And people are avoiding me like whoah.
Half an hour ago the bar was at its fullest. Mundanes (which is to say, normal people) were even clustering in groups along the walls to drink and bray inanities at each other.
Yours truly, however, has two whole sofas allllllllllllllllll to herself.
Is it the boots? Is it the maiden shirt? Is it the ink?
All three, gentle reader, for I am stuck in Conference Hell.
Harrogate. Spa town, jewel of Victoriana in England's chilly North; notorious for its conference and meetings facilities, its fine hotels and elegant streets and parks...
...and I'm going steadily insane here.
See, I knew it was a nice hotel. OK, nice hotel, big deal. So I just chucked my normal gear in a bag and jumped in the car. My biggest concern was whether Sam The Bastard would have bust the lid of his viv by the time I got home.
Gets here, and experienced a mild sinking feeling on seeing the front of the hotel. Big, imposing, Victorian, stone etc etc. Yeah. Nice.
People are staring at the jacket by the time we hit the foyer.
By the time we've checked in several of the staff have made an excuse to wander through and have a look. I bolt for the room.
Where I promptly discover that I am not allowed to smoke.
Cue one sense of humour failure. I had assumed - silly me - that Slay, having been married to a smoker for seven years, would have remembered to check. He hadn't. And when he did check - by which time I had stormed off to the bar in a temper - he discovered that the hotel does not allow smoking in any of the rooms. Had I known this, I may well have thought twice about coming here, but there you are. Because if I get overwhelmed by too many Normal People (AKA Mundanes) I had thought that I could zip back to the room and lurk, comfortable with my tea and coffee making facilities and my smokes.
No.
The barman wouldn't give me a drink until he saw the key card, so one swiftly snarled phone call to my beloved sorted that. Then, of course, I saw how much they charge down here in the bar for a cup of tea.
Y'all know how I love my tea, right?
When one asks for tea here, one gets:
A pot containing tea (two bags).
A pot of similar size containing hot water.
A bowl of sugar cubes.
A pot of milk.
A biscuit. (Shortbread, so far.)
Oh, and a cup and saucer and a spoon.
Careful manipulation of the above fluids gives one three cups of very pleasant tea. Which does not excuse the price of - get this - THREE POUNDS AND SIXTY PENCE that they charge for the damn stuff.
This is extortion.
Anyway, the staring begins the second I take my jacket off. I realise that I'm surrounded by Mundanes, I'm here for almost four days, and I have no internet access.
Cue a certain amount of begging. See, my dearly beloved husband does not approve of t-mobile's wi-fi hotspot thingy. I think he's just a tightarse and doesn't like to pay for anything but that's neither here nor there; having the 'net would at least assuage some of the feeling of isolation I was beginning to experience.
Anyway, while he mulled this over we decided to get some dinner. First night, so we'd eat in the hotel; expensive, but we could expense his food so fuck it. Luckily, I'd brought a plain shirt - albeit a teeny weeny strappy thing - so I changed for dinner.
So had the othyer guests in the restaurant, but their outfits veered more toward the twinset-and-pearls.
The couple next to us couldn't speak when we walked in. The staff were fine, never turned a hair; the well-bred horror from the next table over, however, more than made up for that. Quite made my night, actually. Think they got indigestion.
The meal, by the by, was excellent. The wine was fantastic.
The bill was terrifying.
And so to bed. I discovered that, although the elegant sash window opened a mere four inches this was enough to allow me to smoke through without setting off the smoke alarm. Strike one for the underdog.
Good shower, hard bed - with sheets and blankets, have these people never heard of duvets? - and pillows fulla rocks. Why are hotel pillows always fulla rocks?
Anyway.
Slay snores. Badly.
So after not getting much sleep I accompanied him down to breakfast. Staff, as ever, never turned a hair; the guests, on the other hand, stared and stared and stared.
Fuck 'em. I refuse to be intimidated. I am a writer and an artist and you are little people with little lives struggling along in dull little jobs to pay the man, so fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
Bloody marvellous breakfast. Best black pudding ever.
The barman didn't ask for my room card this time. You remember me from yesterday, huh? I said. He sort of grinned.
I am, I added with a wink, a little noticeable.
He agreed, and I got an especially nice biscuit. I think he likes me.
Slay went to his conference and I went back to bed. Do Not Disturb sign on the door, nice quiet room, slept through till three. Woke up to discover that my body had decided to betray me and bring the monthly visitor a week early, bastard; which meant I was going to have to go out in the snow to find a chemist.
Fine, endured the usual stares going through reception - swung my hips and banged down my boot heels - and plunged into the snow to explore the town centre.
Now, it's a beautiful little city. Really. Parks and gardens and soaring Victorian architecture. Designer shops - designer everything, from Agas to beds to lamps - but anything useful?
No.
You want a range cooker, or a repro Tiffany lamp or a four poster bed? No problem. You want to sip tea while you listen to a string quartet? Yup. Mooch an art gallery? The number you can choose from is enormous. Hand made chocolates? Jewellry?
Fucking sanitary towels?
Mile and a half that way and keep your head down going through the door, thank you.
Found an HMV. Which stocked no Iron Maiden at all.
...
OMG, I'm in Mainstream Hell.
I did discover a little record shop which had a teeny weeny metal section at the back. So I bought Breed 77's new album because I hadn't spent enough money to annoy Slay with, and it was a good price. The staff were almost Too Cool to serve me, but it's hard to ignore a squat, bad tempered metalhead with a scowl that can cut steel and Boots Ov Doom.
So I stomped back to the hotel - snow had stopped - taking note of the bar that advertised 'Vodka And Food' for later. Got another cup of tea (and a biscuit) from my charming little barman, and sulked in a corner until Slay came back from his conference. Now, before he left I'd extracted from him a grudging agreement that I could use the wireless internet in the hotel.
On my return to Mundane Central, I'd asked the woman on reception how you used it, and was given a leaflet and told that it only worked downstairs.
*Groan*
Anyway, got the laptop set up, followed the instructions in the leaflet and --
Nuffink.
Still fighting the Silicon Bastard when Slay came back; he tried too, and we managed to get it to work. For about a minute a half. Long enough to see Rockfic, read a thread and then - nope, nothing.
Cue another sense of humour failure.
By now we were both hungry, so we dumped everything back in the room and headed off to find somewhere for dinner that was a more reasonable price and wasn't full of people staring at me as though I had two heads. Not easy round here, but we discovered a chain pub with disinterested staff and average food.
Mission accomplished.
We had tried the 'Vodka And Food' place, but they stopped doing food at eight. It was five past when we checked, and the chef had given up and gone home.
Anyway, we stopped off there on the way back. Why? Because we wanted a drink and Wetherspoon's is crap, plus the barman in Revolution (Vodka bar) was incredibly cute.
My reasoning, not Slay's.
In fact, if I can get a picture of him tomorrow, I will - because he looks like something out of a manga. Really. Slim, pretty, blonde. Oh my.
So we tried a cocktail each (cue whining from Slay about price). I tell you what, I didn't know so many bloody varieties of vodka existed. I could get totally bladdered there every night for a lifetime and not try them all.
Anyway, the cute barman? Mixes a wicked Bloody Mary. Spicy as fuck.
I got dragged out after that, and we settled once more in the bar. Where I got stared at a lot. Although Slay did actually manage to work out what the problem was with this laptop, and I'm now happily ensconced upon Teh Itarwebz where people don't stare at me like some sort of exotic bug.
I paid for 24 hours access. For ten quid.
Daylight fucking robbery.
So I think I shall have more tea - although the biscuit supply has dried up, bastards - then go back and lie in the dark listening to Slay snore.
Dear all, wish you were here...!
