Horror Hotel

Have you seen those new TV ads for Premier Inns? You know, the really lame ones with Lenny Henry? The ones where they try to convince us that they've moved up market. Apparently they no longer want to be known as a chain of low market flop houses, conveniently situated close to motorway service stations for tired sales reps, furtive adulterers, drug dealers making a connection and serial killers. (OK, I know that not all such establishments are part of the Premier Inns chain, I'm making a sweeping generalisation here for satirical purposes. Humour me.) These God-forsaken places, with their indentikit, soul-less rooms, are the nearest equivalent we have in this country to those back of beyond motels you see in American films. The sort of places you should never book into - if the demented hill billies running it don't bugger you senseless before murdering and eating you, you'll find yourself caught in the cross fire between rival drug gangs, framed for murder by the local cops when you find a dead hooker in your bathtub, or befriended by the local hatchet murderer.

I remember once having to visit one of these places on business (to be fair, I don't think it was a Premier Inn); although it wasn't near a motorway service station, (it was situated in the back of trading estate, between Allied Carpets and Homebase), it was every bit as depressing as you'd expect. From the moment you walked in, it was quite clear why these are the sorts of places that people frequently check into, just to check out. There was no foyer, just a dingy, featureless entrance. Instead of reception, there was, quite literally, a cupboard off to one side. It had a stable-type door, the top half of which was open to reveal a shelf which passed for a desk, whilst the whole rear wall (situated barely three feet behind the door), consisted entirely of clicking and whirring meters and fuse boxes. It didn't exactly scream 'up market'. The 'manager' (a spotty faced youth of, it seemed, about twelve), eventually appeared after ten minutes of me pressing the bell for attention, looking dishevelled and short of breath. I can only assume that he'd just been disposing of that OD'd junkie in room 112. I was left wondering whether it was the sheer shittiness of such places that draw the suicidal to them like magnets, or whether it is simply the fact that they are so depressing that people are driven to suicide when they stay in them? Whatever, we can but hope that Lenny Henry's campaign on behalf of Premier Inns encourages some of his less palatable showbiz colleagues to turn up dead in low-rent hotel rooms.