‘A man that can scare a cat with a glance.’
19
And So to Bed – Hotel Stories
Those who don’t ‘get’ me have my sympathy. They’re stuck with me entering their home via their TV, a motormouth that just can’t be plugged. These folk usually take to social media to tell me how I am ruining their sport and should just exit stage left and not come back – or words to that effect. And like I said, I do have some sympathy. Being comfortable in your home is a part of the right to sanity and sanctuary. One strives to be at peace and comfort in one’s own space. In a busy world, we surely have a right to feel at ease for at least part of the day. So they get uppity and take to Twitter, where they find a posse of like minds ready to have a go, telling me I am but a small fish in a big pond and that I should move over to allow for a more acceptable commentator who’s happy to talk time cut-off equations and minor rider career history rather than bang on about vistas, vultures and vin rouge. I get their point. But let me tell you, dear detractors, I am indeed a big fish . . . massive. And this fact unfortunately makes for some uncomfortable days indeed. Let’s go to bed . . .
‘Bonsoir, je m’appelle “Keer-bee”. Kahh, ee, airh, bay, ee-grek.’ Wait for the key. ‘Un question: est-ce que un grand lit?’
The answer to the question as to whether or not I have a big bed is going to frame the rest of my stay in this particular establishment. Will it be king bed or cot? Will I have to modify the room or not? My mouth is going to turn either up or down at the edges, depending on what comes next.
‘Non monsieur, un simple. Le reservation est pour un simple person.’
‘Bollocks.’
‘Comment?’
‘Bollocks. C’est un mot anglais.’
Inevitably I am at the rear of this less than classy hotel, which, thanks to a trouser press in the lobby, sits at the top of the one-star gaffs locally. I open the door, which swings with a rusty squeak. And my shoulders drop. The musty afterglow of a thousand previous guests hangs in the air. I navigate my way along 2.5m (8ft) of brown, bubbled-up lino towards the long, thin, shuttered window, intent on airing this hovel. The room is so narrow my wheeled suitcase brushes against both the wall and my place of rest.
‘This is shit,’ I mumble for the umpteenth time.
I pull in the windows and push out the shutters. No burst of light, just an echo as the flimsy old wooden blinds smack the wall either side of what looks like a lift shaft to hell. It’s the communal air hole to the rooms of all the poor sods who have to stay here for the night. I look up and about five floors above me I can tell there is sky, but the hanging washing of a cyclist, likewise condemned, blocks my view as a drip of water from a hand-washed sock plinks into my eye.
‘This is shit!’
And the echo repeats . . . shit . . . shit . . . shit.
It’s not all glam in the world of cycling. Just ask super-sprinter André Greipel, who suffered such terrible rooms on one Giro d’Italia night after night, he suggested it might be some form of gamesmanship.
You see, races sometimes go to rather remote locations, and this means rooms are not in plentiful supply. So basically, whoever you are, you get what’s available. This can mean vast quality differences in your allotted room from one night to the next. Stars of the sport the riders may be, but on a Tuesday night in deepest Puglia that does not necessarily mean there will be many stars applied to their hotel sign. Many have none.
For me, I am not too bothered by a hotel’s location. I’m not after a view. I get that all day. All I want is a bed I can turn over in without having to make what I call a ‘rotisserie manoeuvre’: up in the air, spin, land back down. And a bit of air con if we’re in mozzie country, please. That way, if it’s hot, I don’t have to open the window and then get savaged. I’m convinced the reason others are not troubled by flying teeth is simply that the entire mosquito population prefers to eat me.
So I kick off my size 10 shoes, noting that end-to-end they bridge from bed to wall. There is a sink behind the slender, plywood, wobbly wardrobe at the foot of my bed. This is a small mercy as I douse a towel and drape it around my neck, in the way of a boxer, to keep moderately cooler than would otherwise be possible without air con. Lying down with my computer resting on bended knees, I try to catch up with the post-race news. Inevitably there is no internet, so I tether my phone and get on with it. The light from my computer is the only illumination. This allows me to forget the rest of the darkened room beyond my glowing bubble.
After an hour I close the laptop and let my legs slide down the bed. ‘Oh for f--k’s sake.’
Before the back of my knees meet the mattress, my feet hit the wardrobe,
