In which I turn up to the wrong hotel for my massage, before facing the most Doha decision of my life
As a kid growing up in rural England, ‘Five Star’ meant a terrible Jackson 5-lite pop group, who were only ever famous for being sworn at on live kids’ TV and hotels were places that were closed in winter and drove Jack Nicholson mad.
Fast forward a generation, and my kids live in a city where 5* hotels are so omnipresent we use them to give directions, in the absence of anything more reliable.
We name our intersections after them – like ‘Ramada signal’, still stubbornly known by its former occupant, long after it’s been demolished and replaced by a Radisson Blu. Continue reading