City hotel fails to provide that celebrity feel
Now, I’d be the first to say that I wouldn’t kick Angelina Jolie out of bed, but the chances, quite frankly, are somewhere between slim and uh-oh, something has seriously gone wrong with the space/time continuum.
Still, the next best thing is certainly not be to defile a Madame Tussauds model of the women.
Yet there I was, trudging around the famous old London tourist trap with foreign visitors giggling and blushing with glee as they seemingly got to second base with an inanimate Kate Moss and an all too unsuspecting copy of Kylie Minogue.
Apparently I was the only one who seemed to have noticed that the cringeo- meter had rocketed to full-blown, code-red, dad-is-dancing-at-a-wedding status.
Nevertheless, I managed to shuffle further into the macabre museum and do what Allied troops have so far failed to achieve, and find Colonel Gaddafi – though the Libyan dictator’s model hadn’t been updated to the plastic surgery horror show that is his actual visage.
Funny, as you’d have thought, this adaptation would have been quite simple – just let the work experience kid loose on his effigy with a blow torch for five minutes – job done.
But the North African warlord’s presence wasn’t the most jaw-dropping inclusion of a rather disturbing despot corner, housing all your genocidal ‘favourites’ like Mugabe, Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler. I jest of course, but only because this is where my second bout of what-is-this-worldcoming- to – it is struck when there was a queue of kiddiewinks waiting to have their picture taken with the moustachioed man who masterminded the Holocaust.
And if that’s not a damning summation of the standard of education these days then nothing is! Still, it is admirable how life-like – Gaddafi’s boat race aside – that the Tussauds waxworks were, down to the last detail.
I’d like to say the same about the Radisson Edwardian Grafton Hotel on London’s Tottenham Court Road – the principal reason for this visit – but I can’t.
It was just the little things mind you, but when you’re talking about a luxury hotel, they all add up.
I realise what you’re now about to read will garner absolutely no sympathy for what was essentially a free overnight jolly, for members of the press, to the country’s capital in a time of austerity – but I didn’t feel sufficiently fussed over.
If you think about it though, if you are shelling out for anything these days then you’d want every last penny’s worth.
That being the case, these small blots on the copybook just manifested themselves into a hotelier’s checklist of what not to do when inviting a scoop of journalists to review your establishment.
Don’t get me wrong, if you’re planning a trip to The Smoke to hit the shops and see a few sights, then the deluxe room was impeccable and spacious, the bed was comfy, the TV flat and there were some sweet treats awaiting us on arrival.
But, bearing in mind I was invited there to tell you good readers about its charms, the view from the window of grey rooftops, pipes and vents, rather than the exciting buzz of the street that the Grafton calls home, it wasn’t a great way to kick things off.
A tour of our home for the night then revealed the smaller quarters, function rooms, gym and a computer room with free internet access. Yet it also unveiled a suite – an empty one – and surely a chance missed to butter up a press pack with the power to issue a post gladiatorial thumb up, or thumb down.
A stay of execution was afforded until dinner only to be told ten minutes after ordering the venison that there was in fact none available. This would have been fine, if told before making my choice and equally fine if there had been a particular rush for the gamey dish. Alas not, as the dinning room was empty.
And though the wine did flow it was probably to mask the fact that my alternative choice of steak was tougher than a Tory tax cut.
Then again, with the culinary delights awaiting you beyond the hotel’s threshold, you’d have to be an entirely unadventurous soul to want to stay put for food.
That is pretty much the equivalent of staring at a Hollywood waxwork when a short hop across town to Leicester Square they roll out the red carpet for the version with a pulse.
Info Station
James Cunliffe stayed at the Radisson Edwardian Grafton Hotel, 130 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 5AY
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7388 4131
www.radissonedwardian.com/grafton
Rooms cost from £125 excluding VAT
