ECHO 8/1/06

Hotels – having been brought up in them all over the country, I find them fascinating places – microcosms of class, pretension; where people from diverse backgrounds are put together in intimate space – watching the different dynamics of behaviour and environment playing out – the lone businessman left stranded by work commitments amid the weekenders, where normally during the week he is surrounded by his clones and therefore more relaxed, less obvious (his the biggest car in the car park on Sunday morning); the two couples come away for the weekend but neither sure why they did so as they don’t really like the others that much and this was something to do, so they are each nursing hangovers over breakfast and stumbling their ways around the buffets style service with its countless bowls of fruits, cereals, the strange revolving toaster and the confusing coffee dispenser; the Sunday staff who are in a permanent state of abrasion and surliness, any request even for the smallest item is met with a look of withering disdain and the moment a bowl or plate is empty they swoop in and remove without asking or attempting anything close to patience. If I could afford it, I’d love to research them all over the country.

In Tewkesbury Abbey there is a 14th century statue of a cadaver with vermin crawling all over it – the stonemason or sculptor must have been working from life when he carved it, the remains of the face are oddly alive even in stone, and the look of agony on it makes it hard to look at for any length of time –