The Adventures of a Small Businessman in the Forbidden Zone - страница 20

As I said the DTI wanted to keep all the exhibitors together so we had no choice in our hotel accommodation, otherwise we would have chosen someplace a little less ostentatious, shall we say, and a lot cheaper.

Now don’t get me wrong the hotel was wonderful, but you know why it is called the Forte Grand? Because that is roughly how much full English breakfast would cost a family of four – about forty grand. Pounds Sterling my friends. No joke. Let me tell you how I discovered this distressing fact.

My alarm failed to stir me when it rang at eight AM. I woke up late in the morning after a restful sleep. Having missed breakfast I ate some pineapple from the fruit bowl, made myself look presentable and wondered off in search of my father. I found him in the reception area chatting with two other members of our group. They hadn’t been up long either. Funny how taxing on the system sitting in seats and being transported around can actually be.

They were sat in comfortable leather chairs around a low dark wood coffee table. Each time the main door opened a gust of furnace temperature air hit me like a slap across the face. Clearly the others also felt it. One of them proposed that we cool down with a cold beer then share a taxi downtown for a look around. There was plenty of time before we would be allowed into the exhibition hall at 4 O’clock to start setting up our stands.

So we had a bottle each of ‘probably the best lager in the world’ and asked the doorman to hail a taxi. I offered to settle the bill – it was only four small bottles of beer for heaven sake, while the others negotiated a price with the taxi driver. I paid the waiter and was walking out to join the others thinking to myself how reasonable a hotel it was. Eighty pence for a bottle of beer, not too bad at all. I checked my change and redid the mathematics in my head. There must be some mistake. I went back to the waiter.

“Excuse me, there appears to be a mistake with the bill. I ordered four small beers but you charged me for Dom Perignon.”

The waiter, clad in the ubiquitous white suit and red turban, checked the bill.

“No Sir, sad to tell you that the bill is correct.” Dad heard my reply and he was sat in a taxi outside the hotel.

“Eight quid for a bottle of Danish tonsil wash? Are you out of your tiny mind? I was apoplectic. How could I ever get blotto at these prices? “Three hundred degrees Celsius in the bloody shade and sixteen pounds for a pint of lager! Fuck this I’m going home.”

“Sir I don’t set the prices in the hotel. Believe me Sir they don’t pay me enough to buy a coke in here either.” The conversation was now effectively over.

I headed for the taxi in a state approaching catatonia. The Guy in the Mogul outfit followed me to the door speaking discretely in my ear.

“If I might suggest Sir, there is a rear entrance to the hotel across the gardens at the side of the fitness center. Beyond that and across the road is a bar called Biggles Bar. I understand that they serve pints of very nice cold beer for a mere fraction of the prices in this hotel. Also I notice that Sir is not wearing a wedding ring. Biggles Bar is a favourite haunt of the bored Western nurses from the hospital across town. I am sure Sir would have an interesting evening if he chose to visit.”

What a top bloke!!!

I joined the others in the taxi and imparted this important information. The other two were on company expenses and didn’t care less if beer was eight pounds a bottle. Dad and I however, had not budgeted for these prices and I was already worried we would run out of cash.