Monday, August 11, 2008

England Trip - August 11th, 1983

We returned to the Onslow Court Hotel in London after 13 days in the provinces. I felt like a seasoned Londoner today, like a native back home after holiday. A group of young German tourists stopped me on the street and asked why the bars where closed. I gave them the low down on the local siesta law. They seemed grumpy. Nothing funnier than a grumpy German tourist, unless its a grumpy German tourist in a speedo.

Our hotel concierge booth featured a sign that listed all the current local theatre productions. Judy Oden and I asked for a recommendation since Cats was sold out. The concierge recommended a hot new comedy Noises Off, and we booked it for the following night.

We tested all our hotel pubs while on tour and they ran the gamut. Quite a few of them resembled the proletarian bar in Fawlty Towers; A small bar top about six feet wide with one or two keg taps and a random collection of hard liquor. There was one place that was the opposite, and I don't recall which provincial town this was, but the bar in the hotel was a popular local night spot, in fact it wasn't a pub at all. It was a night club, with a dance floor, and local singles on the make. Judy Oden told me that she looked out her room window later that evening and saw a guy, who presumably got his English motor running at the disco, trying to get the attention of someone in the hotel - Romeo and Juliet style. I don't know if he threw rocks at a nearby window or not. Judy said he returned with a ladder. Crazy British hotel night club. I wonder if he rented the ladder from the concierge booth?

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