In Oban

So, I'm in a hotel in Oban and being in a hotel means certain behaviours come to the fore. I can never figure out why it takes so long to book into a hotel room, Perhaps it has something to do with the notion that if you work out how much time you actually spend in the room, the £80 tariff seems quite steep. If you spend 45 minutes booking in, it seems like much more of an occasion, perhaps we'll soon be asked to arrive 3 hours before check in, just so we feel we're getting our money's worth.

Being a Scottish hotel means it has a typically Scottish name, its called the Thistle Caledonian Lochs & Glens McDonald Clan Bothy Inn Hotel, Hotel. I'm joking, I don't know what its called, someone at work booked it, or I should say booked it for me but not for my colleague who's booking was lost somewhere, he's sleeping in the car. My room is a suite so its quite ironic and entirely apt that I have enough beds for a family and he's only got one for tonight in the eves. (He's not sleeping in the car, I lied about that.)

Obviously on finding the room you do the normal hotel room things, opening and closing all the drawers, cupboards and doors, checking the bathroom for unguents and cleansing agents then stealing them for use at home. You have to locate the Gideon's bible so you can use it prop fire doors open. This is important when staying in an older hotel, the way they're set out is not conducive to survival should fire break out, or indeed general navigation. On the way back to my generously appointed suite I past the dried out husks of at least three pensioners who obviously failed to reach their rooms or their coach home. I would report it to reception but I have no way explaining where the bodies are.

The TV doesn't seem to have the usual range of channels, just channel five and P7, what ever that is. Its showing Fatal Attraction which I can't watch because it's far too scary, being as it was made in the 1980's. There is internet access but there's really no way I can use the hotel wireless connection. I mean, not being able to organise a room booking three weeks in advance doesn't mean they don't know how to check internet logs. I'm not taking the chance, any way, its a moot point, Michael Douglas is currently boffing Glenn Close in a kitchen sink, I did say it was scary...

Earlier this evening we took dinner in the hotel bar which was nice, as with hotels of a certain age its important to remember not to look at the carpet for too long, it will make you dizzy or cause you to regurgitate your tea, (which is apposite since Glenn Close has just finished ingurgitating Michael Douglas' seed in an elevator, or at least I think that was what was happening.)

Of course no hotel bar is complete with out the obligatory retirees on tour, and so it was, usually miserable, the phrase chewin' a wasp can be applied. I don't know about any of you (I say any, like more than one or two people read this) but I can't help but be captivated when I see older people eat, their lips are like a cat's arsehole eating a fruit gum, its horrid yet compelling. Perhaps its just me though.

Tomorrow morning we're on the first ferry over to Mull, it leaves at 7am, not a time in the morning with which I am overly familiar, so I'm having an early night. I would stick with Fatal Attraction but I don't think its a great idea, I might have nightmares. Normally when staying in a hotel, I like to take full advantage of the residents bar, I'll get really very drunk and later on, set off fire extinguishers in the hotel corridors, move the cadavers of long dead OAP's and rip a paisley patterned curtain off its rails and prance around reception wearing it as a toga.

I'm joking, I'd never do that, besides, Paisley is so last year...