Star-Trek Moment
When I worked in Liverpool I was frequently (OK,always) on the piss after work. A few of us would go straight out, have a few beers, then some nosh and then drink until the wee hours. If I tried that now I'd be in bed for a week.

So this one night I was severely lashed. 10 plus pints and a few whiskies and I could barely cling on to the floor. Then I had a Star-Trek Moment.

A Star-Trek Moment is when you're on the piss and you're enjoying yourself in some club. Then, a split second later, you're waking up back in your hotel room and you haven't a clue how you got there. That's what happened this night.

So there I was, in my hotel room and I had the hangover from hell. Blearily I forced open my eyes. Then it hit me. I had the feeling that I wasn't alone. Oh crap. What have I picked up this time? So I swivelled my eyes to the left and saw......

Red. All over the pillowcase, all over the sheets and, inexplicably, all up the wall. Oh fuck. What have I done now? Did I invite some girl back and then murder her?

So I dragged my aching carcass out of bed and headed for the bathroom. I flicked on the light switch and there in the full length mirror, in front of me, stood a 6 foot tall Geordie, bollock naked with a kebab stuck to the side of his head.

Cheers

P.S.Have you any idea how long I scrubbed the side of my face for to try and get the smell of chilli sauce and kebab out? Well it didn't work. For weeks afterwards I was followed by packs of dogs......
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 3:17, 2 replies)

Hotel Klicov we hardly knew yee
Me and a friend went to Prague two summers ago. We were in such a hurry to get pissed we left the hotel without the address of the place.

By the time we remembered, it was six in the morning and we were hammered. We had a vague idea the hotel was in some place called Klicov. We asked endless amounts of taxi drivers. They asked their base. Nobody knew of a place called Klicov. Then a kindly homeless person took pity on us and found us an internet cafe. We got him a beer, I found the address online; it was indeed Klicov.

Printed off the address and showed it to the homeless guy and with beer in hand he annouces "AH! Klishov!"

Bloody pronounciations.

Needless to say the next night we did the exact same thing.
(badly drunk boy, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 2:42, Reply)

Manchester
A few summers ago, when we had a horrible heatwave. No air con, window didn't open and it was generally shite.


Oh, and I lived in a hostel for a bit. Hypodermic needles on the bathroom floor. Fights (including cop dogs) nearly every night.
( Methylene Blue - electrohead, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 2:26, Reply)

Discrete
About a year ago, my girlfriend and I checked into a hotel near to where we work.

We spent quite a few hours getting up to all sorts of naughtiness, toys and other props being involved.

I had to leave around midnight to get back to the missus, leaving her there for the night.

I dropped in on the way to work the next morning and found her eating a full English breakfast.... surrounded by whips, dildos, fetish clothing and the like, it looked like the set of a serious porn film.

The waiter hadnt even blinked at it, because it wasnt until I mentioned it to her that she said Oh my GOD ! Bet he has dined out on that one - cheers mate.
(gpl, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 1:58, 1 reply)

The Bates Motel!
Or at least that's how we thought of it.

When my first son was a newborn my wife and I were going down to Westchester County (just north of NYC) to visit a friend for the weekend. Wally (a nickname, based on a slight resemblance to the older brother on "Leave It To Beaver") was engaged to a girl named Mary who turned out to be a true nutbar. The engagement was broken about a month before the wedding- and Wally, as one would expect from a friend of mine, decided to hold his own Bachelor Party on what would have been his wedding day, to celebrate still being a bachelor. Lots of food, lots of beer, lots of drunken louts hurling a football around and laughing like hell... in all, a great time.

So my wife and I left our son with his grandparents and started down toward NYC from the Utica area. We left rather late in the day, planning on getting as far as we could that night and finishing the trip in the morning.

As it happened, our route took us along the Taconic Parkway. To explain what this means, I will describe it thus: take a road going through the Yorkshire Dale, make it twice as wide with no shoulder, make it two lanes going the same way, and fill it with homicidal maniacs driving between 90 and 100 miles per hour. (That's between 145 and 160 kph for you metric types.) It was scary as hell for me as I was the one driving- so for my wife it was like being a Christian Scientist with appendicitis. (Cool points if you get the reference.)

So when we saw a sign for a motel, we got off the Parkway gladly and went looking.

Have you ever seen an American "motor court" from the 1950s? It's basically a square U-shape with parking in front of the units. This was a particularly grim little place, long since run to seed. When I went to check in I was confronted by a four foot tall woman with grey hair and wild staring eyes who rolled off of her bed in the next room to attend the front desk, and said about three words the entire time. In a prominent place behind the desk was an autographed photo of Phyllis Diller.

Seriously- I was looking for Norman Bates as we went to our room.

We got our suitcase and went into the room, which reeked of old cigarettes and other things I didn't want to think about, and found it to be quite up-to-date if you were living in about 1962. There was no TV, and the only entertainment was a clock radio boasting "Solid State Electronics". But it had a flattish surface with some sort of soft things at the end that served as a bed, so we elected to go along with it.

Bear in mind that we were in our late 20s at the time, and our hormones were still boiling at an almost adolescent level. So I suppose it's not too much of a surprise that we got a bit horny despite the surroundings.

As she was still nursing at the time, my wife was not on birth control pills, so we were relying on a diaphragm and spermicidal foam. Unfortunately we never did quite get the hang of that- inserting the diaphragm was a skill neither of us ever really acquired, or at least we weren't very good at it. But my wife went into the bathroom to do her best with it anyway.

I lay there in the horrid little bed, naked and waiting for my wife to emerge in her while lacy nightgown, as ready for a good romp as any young man. I lay there, one thin partition away from her as she struggled with the unfamiliar and awkward equipment that she was trying to insert into her nether regions. As I lay there I heard a muffled explosion and some very bad language, followed by a muttered "...all over the fucking place!" and tried not to think about what was going on in the bathroom.

Then my wife emerged in her white lace nightgown, her nipples hard and very visible through the thin lace, with a shy and demure look on her face- and, perched like a white lacy bow on top of her head, a large puff of spermicidal foam in her hair.

It took a couple of minutes for me to get control of my laughter enough to gasp out that she should look at the mirror.

I did get laid- but it took a while to get her calmed enough, and for me to get the giggles out of my system.

Oh, who am I kidding- I've been giggling even as I write this!
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 18 Jan 2008, 1:35, 5 replies)

Pay the Piper to Bugger Off
Back in 1998, I was living in London, and decided to take a short holiday in Scotland, for the first time in many years. I'm originally from Dunfermline, but left there at age 6, and had only been back a couple of times since. From Aberdeen I got the coach to Inverness, where I'd never been before. Talk about a tourist trap... it wasn't high season (May), but I only found a place to stay on the 3rd attempt:

1) Inverness centre: a small old hotel. I'm not used to hotel receptionists suggesting I check the room out first, but it was good thing she did. Grey walls, rickety beds, smelly drapes: I walked back out.

2) Inverness outskirts: found a business-type hotel on the outskirts. They had rooms, but frighteningly expensive, way over my budget.

3) OK, I was going to visit Elgin anyway, so I hopped on the bus. (Good thing I'd left plenty of time.) I found a place on the outskirts of Elgin, which wasn't too expensive. The room was small, the bed... basically a camp bed, with basic bedding. The other guests were mostly coach tours.
It would do, I'd had a long day... but it wasn't over yet. The disco right below my room was in full swing by 8PM, and went on till 1AM. Then the Piper started playing outside my window.

Just to put matters in to perspective: not only am I Scottish, I actually learned to play the bagpipes and joined a pipe band. I have nothing against them except their limitations as a musical instrument: they don't scare me. They are a proud part of my heritage, but I DO NOT WANT to hear them outside my bedroom window at 1AM. The piper was probably OK, but had clearly had a few too many drams, and should not have been operating heavy machinery in the middle of the night! It was probably a tourist anyway... the locals would have had more sense. I think.
( bnt what, me worry?, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 0:55, Reply)

oh, where do i start?
age 7: caravan site in wales. caravan was next to a railway, the toilet was broken, the blankets had fleas and we were woken each morning by my dad, waging a war against the moles that were all around the caravan. him and his trusty shovel could be heard for miles: "come here, you furry little bastards, i'll fucking bash your brains in!"

age 11: hotel in spain. lloret de mar. plasters off the chef's fingers found in people's food, plaster off the ceiling likewise found in the food, as was an impressive amount of huge, fat slugs. distressing smell of sewage around the bar, broken glass in the indoor pool and, to top it off, someone stole my new puma jacket.

age 24: spain again, this time malgrat. supposedly 3-star hotel. the room had no balcony, despite the brochure claiming that all rooms did. there was no shower and the bath was roughly the size of an oxo cube. the food was vile, but that didn't matter, because there wasn't enough. the first 10 guests in the queue got hot chips, the next 10 got cold mash and the rest got skanky "risotto". the room was so small, i could open the window from my bed, which was against the far wall. on the third day, the maid complained that i had wet clothes in the bath. the manageress was about to give me a bollocking, so i started first, telling her that if i had a balcony, i could dry my clothes properly. i mentioned the fact that i was a solicitor(i'm not, but it put the shits up them) and got a new room within 10 minutes. it had a balcony. the wardrobe was an alcove with a floral curtain on string.

age 32, last year: butlin's. in february. walking to breakfast through a hailstorm is not fun. nor were the extremely loud, drunken scottish couple in the room behind mine, who tried to force open the connecting door several times. repeated complaints to them and staff achieved nothing.

this year, i'm staying home.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 0:51, 2 replies)

Wasn't so bad until after I stayed there!!
While working in Newcastle got put up in the city center 'Quality Inn'--It wasn't very high quality at all but funky in a sort of retro 1970's Crossroads style...Anyway after us lot stayed there and I imbibed abit too much on Pernod and black on top of a huge chinese meal and about 10 bottles of Newcy Brown ale felt somewhat ill after a trip up in the lift...Spewed all over somebodies door and was then copiously sick in the bath...
Next morning I woke up feeling a bit queasy, then remembered what I had done...Oops... Heard the screams of revulsion when person opposite opened their door to find semi digested chow mein and purple sick on their door..then remembered the bath....Spent the next hour cleaning it up with hotel towels...Problem was how to dispose of sick covered towels?/ Couldn't throw them out of the window or put them in the bin because of possible discovery...So in my evil genius hid them right at the back of one of the draws so as to be out of sight of the cleaner....We checked out, never to return that morning I only wonder who used my room after me and weather they used the chest of draws???

If it was you I am soooo sorry :)
(archstanton The gold is next to me....leave me be, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 0:50, Reply)

Should Be Fun
.
Because of my job I've spent most of my adult life living in hotel rooms. Monday to Thursday, with the occasional weekends thrown in, I'd be living out of a suitcase. I've probably spent more nights on hotels than I have at home. So forgive me if I post quite a few tales of woe up here.

I've been in every star you can imagine (including minus stars) and have experienced everything from the sublime (rarely) to the ridiculous.I've been turfed out of my bed at 6am "because the guy who sleeps here during the day is early" and had to rewire my room at 11pm, while pissed, because the lights didn't work.

I've also spent one night, by accident, in an asylum-seekers hotel. Didn't think I'd survive that one and left by a window as soon as dawn broke.

And, in one B&B I rang the bell and said to the bloke who opened the door:

"Hi - I see you've a room vacant. Do you mind if I look round?"

"Not at all - you look round to me you fat cunt" said bloke.


That was a lie. Just thought I'd slip in an appropriate joke...

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 0:47, 3 replies)

EVIL FUCKING STUDENT DIGS
Aberdeen in the middle of the oil rush c. 1975 - 26 (YEP, TWENTY-SIX!!!!) of us in a single house with rooms divided up into 3rds by thin painted lining board so that we could all be in bunk-bedded rooms and supposedly only sharing with one other.

The night's sleep was usually broken as unmarked lorries backed into our yards to unload what we did not know what into heavily padlocked garages and every morning a fag-smoking cook with a filthy rose-patterned pinny (despite being a bloke) and dirty fingernails made bacon and eggs which allowed the cunt who was exploiting us for 10 pounds a head each week (a fortune in 1975) to say it was bed and breakfast and charge more. The eggs were sometimes green - really fully snot green, I shit you not.

When I exposed this little bastard in the letter's page of our student newspaper (in my first ever term at Uni) I was met at the front door that the very same night by our friendly landlord. His left hand had a baseball bat in it and I was encouraged to pack and leave that very minute despite having no where to go and having paid a week in advance. I think he said something like "Fuck off or die" to me as I fled the courtyard.

Mrs Harkess student accommodation officer who let all this happen at the time despite my complaints - je accuse.

Hope you are sucking cocks in hell you wizened old colluding bag. Or better still painfully clinging to life, colostomy bag smelling and with no-one to help change it as you dribble down your chin.

I'm not bitter me.

Share my pain and click 'I like this' to help me get over it all. Fuck I was only 16 at the time too!

PS The worst thing about it all was - and I just remembered this having blanked the horror out from all those years ago - my fecking room mate being all broody for his school girlfriend and playing the slow side of Rod Stewart's Atlantic Crossing time and time again cos it was "their songs". Perhaps getting kicked out was a blessing now I think of it.
(beaverwastemanagement a real company. I want to work for them!, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 0:46, Reply)

Belarus
2 summers ago, a group of us went to Belarus to do some charity work. We ended up in a summer camp about 2 hours outside Minsk. There was nice volunteer accomodation in the summer camp. With electricity and beds and running water and everything. Did we get this? Did we fuck. The posh bastard students who were also volunteering got to stay there.
Our group got something a little more downmarket. It was an abandoned school. No electricity, no candles on us, one torch between 15 people.
It was a 45 minute walk from the summer camp (where the only "toilet" [a pit you crouched over. You could see the maggots at the bottom and a fly landed on my bum halfway through one day.] was.) The nearest tap was in the camp as well, although our neighbour kindly offered to hose all the girls down if they needed.
Showers took the form of a freezing hose down in a wooden cabin.
The floorboards in the school were mostly rotted away, a fun, bouncy time had by all as we avoided the gaping holes next to our mattresses.

We all got bitten by mosquitoes until our spirits were broken. I heard the team leader pooing into the pit in the cubicle next to me. I saw a giant grasshopper, paniced, and threw it onto one of the children staying at the camp in a fit of terror, causing him to be bitten. The girl sleeping next to me had wind problems and I *know* the guy sleeping to the other side was wanking.

One of the best weeks of my life.
(reducedfatLOLcat, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 0:44, 2 replies)

I used to live in a B&B
It was one of those where the council put you whilst looking for more permanent accomodation. It was my then boyfriend's place as he has been thrown out of his foster home and he was too old to be found another place. Living in this B&B with us were a family of an old, ginger glamour model, her husband and her three vile daughters, one of whom was 14, had herpes and was happily shagging my boyfriend whilst I was out (I didn't get anything, luckily), a pregnant girl who would steal our whisky, a nice couple with two demon toddlers, the owners son and daughter, the son belonging to the TA and was in love with a Muslim girl (meaning he was depressed all the time as he couldn't be with her) and the daughter with two lovely kids and a dodgy perm. Lastly there were the lesbian couple with two IVF kids, who could be your best mates if you had a few beers free or could be the worst thing to encounter.

There were others who came and went, such as the old lady tramp on probation with a huge Alsation that she took to court and what seemed to be a normal guy who turned suddenly aggressive and began a hate campaign against us. I later found out it was because he and my boyfriend were shagging the same girl, but obviously neither of them deigned to mention it at the time.

A few things spring to mind whilst living there. Nobody really got on, positive pregnancy tests being left outside the lesbians door, food being removed from cupboards and arranged in weird patterns and sprinkled with flour and pasta and our door being kicked down whilst we were out one day. The funniest (to me, anyway) was when me and my boyfriend were on a 'break' and had moved from that place, he returned to pick up his stuff. The girl he was shagging had persuaded the owner to give all the bf's stuff to her, and she had then moved. Except from his tv, which now took pride of place in the communal living room.
(missc, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 0:35, Reply)

Marib Hotel, Marib, Yemen, 1992
As I lay on my bed, thinking about you, I feel this strong urge to grab you and squeeze you, because I can't forget last night.

You came to me unexpectedly during the balmy and calm night, and what happened in my bed still leaves a tingling sensation in me.

From nowhere you appeared and shamelessly, without reservations, you laid on my naked body...you sensed my indifference, so you applied your hungry mouth to me without any guilt or humiliation, and you drove me nearly crazy while you drained me.

Finally I went to sleep. Today when I woke up, you were gone - I searched for you but to no avail; only the wildly disordered sheets bore witness to last night's events. My body still bears faint marks of your ravishings, making it harder to forget you.

Tonight I will remain awake waiting for you. . . . .







With a can of Fly Spray - Fucking Mosquito!!!
( fagilliD Fuck I'm good!, Fri 18 Jan 2008, 0:21, 8 replies)

Ah! Yes!
A couple of years ago I booked a one night stay in what looked like an upmarket B&B near the Scots border. The plan being a nice comfortable half way stop for the RoF family on the way up to the Outer Hebrides.

On arrival we were sat down in the living room an offered a cup of tea, all good so far. The Husband half, of the couple running the place, kept us company and proceeded to give as a Paxmanesk grilling regarding jobs, politics and religion, just what you want after a long drive. During one question I was briefly distracted by the sight of a very old lady in a night dress quickly shuffling past the window….odd I thought.
A few minutes later Wife burst into the room and shouts “MOTHERS ESCAPED!!” After a little while they return with mother, who seems inordinately happy to see me and keeps repeatedly telling me “you’re a very naughty boy”. Husband and Wife grin inanely throughout, releasing the odd chuckle, as if this was a fantastically entertaining experience for me. Just when I thought things couldn’t get better, Mother looks my wife squarely in the eye and calls her ‘a beautiful nig-nog’.
On the upside this seemed to shock husband & wife into action and we were soon shown our room, which was OK once the 20 or so ghoulish looking dolls were put in the wardrobe.

It wasn't that the place was crap as such, it was just that despite the good food and warm comfortable room, the overall experience left you feeling that a well spoken couple may be wearing your skin before the night was out.

If you stay in a B&B near the borders, run by a couple who each wear a door handle on a piece of rope round their necks (I didn’t ask), do look out for Mother!
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Fri 18 Jan 2008, 0:11, Reply)

a few years ago....
I got conned (agreed to when I was pissed) into joining in with a erm...re-enactment group...when they were off on a yomp to York for a coronation in York Minster of Eric the Bloodaxe.

so we all (me, my buddy Jon, my eldest son (12 at the time) Paddy (big burly guy who looked like Blackbeard) Paddy's girlfriend, Jon's dodgy brother who had a 'thing' for re-enacting WWII - as a nazi..hmm - and his equally dodgy wife) all hot foot it up to York, Friday night after work

(actually, now I've put down the list of who was going, I'm not that suprised it was quite hard to find somewhere to stay....)

Anyway! We all piled into the B&B that had allegedly been booked for us all, only to be told by the guy that was a spitting image of the nasty landlord in League of Gentlemen, that there was only one room - it was a pretty nasty place anyway - the front room was green, tiny, with a massive chandelier that was at my head height (I am 5'2"! - the other guys were like, 6ft and over!) so we scarpered quickly, leaving the nazi and his 'frau' to that one!

We drove round and round York, the time was getting on (about 10pm by now) and of course every B&B is packed to the rafters with carousing would-be Vikings, singing bawdy songs, quaffing beer just as the dwarfs in Terry Pratchett novels do...

We finally find one last B&B - straight out of a gothic horror novel (yeah, you're thinking it was right up my street, heh) and this shabby old bint shows us up 4 flights of stairs to the attic room - which contains 2 sets of bunkbeds and one 'normal' bed (the mattress was on a sheet of hardwood, held up by four pieces of random timber...

We took it, of course we did, we were knackered, and desperate!

The sheets were minging, made of that bizarre nylon stuff like you used to get in those Youth Hostel 'sleeping bags' and had a lovely 'broderie anglaise' effect from all the fag burns previous residents had left. The banging from the water pipes against the wall every time someone flushed the toilet kept us nicely woken up quite regularly - I guess this could have been construed as an authentic bit of preparation for a Viking Battle (um, the other side banging their shields during the night, or something)

We get up the next morning, feeling shittier than the other Viking brethren who'd spent the previous night getting arse holed, and wend our way down the rickety stairs to breakfast

Cue a glass of neat orange squash (I wish I was joking) tea that probably *was* dishwater, a 'rare' fried egg and a couple of sausages that looked like they'd been retrieved from the clanging toilet overnight...mm..delicious!

At least we had fun visiting Pizza Hut later that day after the 'coronation' and the 'battle' when we piled in, in full battle regalia (not me tho, I had to wear a fucking wimple!)

But I did sing some bawdy songs ;-D
( curvylittlegoth heard the voices in your head on, Thu 17 Jan 2008, 23:57, Reply)

My mother often leaves things to the last minute
This often resulted in us staying in interesting places - a good example is the first time I went to Israel ever when I was but 9 years old. She hadn't told our cousins what time our flight would be arriving, and as it turned out, we arrived in the wee small hours of the night. The shuttle bus dropped us, the only passengers, off at the central bus station. It was the middle of the night. The entire place was closed, the streets were deserted and it is one of the shittiest places to be stuck in Tel Aviv. We spent the stultifyingly humid night on the street on top of our cases while giant flying cockroaches and mangy feral cats jumped around us...

Now that I am older, this leaving things to the last minute has evolved into a 'please please sort out everything for me while I wait here guilt enducingly and pathetically to do so' arrangement, which usually leaves me stressed as hell because no one can put her up, all the hotels are too expensive, etc etc.


When I was studying abroad back in Old Jerusalem, she decided to visit me. She had a place on a TWO week conference which was how she would be able to stay out for THREE weeks, and it was nice because they provided a hotel. Three weeks. The first week was unprovided for as the conference wouldn't have started, and so I spent a great deal of time panicking because I hadn't been able to find anywhere that wasn't extortionate to put my mother up (bearing in mind that my day of timetabled study went from 8:30 am to 10pm). It got to the point where it was two days before she was due to come and I still had no place for her. I was stressed and aggravated, and several of the staff were helping me out and happened to mention to another teacher what was going on. She immediately offered her apartment. Brilliant! Not only that, but beside speaking Hebrew, she was also originally French, so both my mother and I would be happy chatting to her in both*. One small detail - this teacher lives in Ir David, an exclusively Arab part of Jerusalem where we weren't allowed to go because it was so dangerous. Totally Arab except that is, for this one tiny apartment block in which some Jewish families live. It was set up by radical settlers who are determined to have Jews living in Arab areas too. The spirit of contrariness it takes to deliberately live in a place when you actually can't normally leave your house is beyond me. They can only go in and out of their apartment block with an armed guard in a jeep which you call for before, and they take you straight from the door until you're out of Ir David. Well, my mum was just going to have a more interesting stay than usual...

I accompanied her the first time we went so that I could help her unpack and get her stuff sorted. We rang for the armed guard and they decided to rendezvous at the Western Wall. They picked us up, and we set off down the road towards East Jerusalem. Suddenly, the jeep made a sharp turn off the road to the right, and we were driving at 50mph down an unsurfaced road deep, deep down into the heart of the valley. As we jolted along, the sides of the valley rose around us, the green lights of the mosques glowing like beacons. I just sat there thinking "Shit! This is so hardcore....whoah...." while my mum sat smiling rather blithely not having much idea where we actually were. Soon, we got to the bottom of the valley, then did 50 round a hairpin bend and were jolting rapidly forwards rising up the side of the valley until we stopped outside a tall narrow apartment block. There was a reinforced steel front door.

My mum steps out and starts to wander off

"So darling, how do we know which house is theirs?"

"It's the one right ahead where the armed guards are standing, just go straight there it's the only Jewish house here at all, just don't go for a walk, ok?"

The Jeep took me back to the old city and I finally caught up on some of the sleep I'd been missing after trying to sort out the whole visit.





*I always mix up my French and Hebrew, which was not helped by the fact that my (utterly utterly brilliant and legendary) French teacher was Tunisian Arab. I therefore speak French with and Israeli-Arab accent, and speak Hebrew with a slight French accent!
( Hampster Squared has stuff at www.tilla.co.uk, Thu 17 Jan 2008, 23:33, Reply)

School trip mayhem
It wasn't so much the hotel as the location. We'd gone to northern France with the school history dept to look at WWI battlefields (empty fields and graveyards, basically) and were based in a crappy town outside Paris.

The first night there were gangs of Algerian youths chasing the girls in the party and doing all sorts of nonsense to try and attract their attention at 3 in the bloody morning. We were made to swap rooms with the ladies and the next night the Algerians got bottled from the balcony and ran off.

A few minutes later, as we sat outside admiring our handywork, a fire engine drew up in the square outside and someone got out and ran away. We sat looking at it for a few minutes, sitting there quietly with it's lights swirling away, and realised it'd actually been nicked. We settled down on a park bench to see what would happen next.

An hour or so later we here sirens in the distance and assume the local plod are coming to check out the stolen appliance. Not so, for they scream round the corner in classic Black Marias and proceed to pile into the hotel next to ours and begin dragging out dozens of Prossies and men in their underwear. It was a brothel, which explained why there were Ho's on every street corner in the place, and they were raiding it in clasic Pink Panther style.

Once all the patrons from the rub-a-tug shop were safely away in the back of the vans they screamed off into the night, leaving us all cheering and laughing, while the fire engine sat there flattening its battery with its lights getting slower. Later that night a passing riotous mob of Algerians brought the police back in force, and this time they took the engine with them.

Next morning our teachers told us to pack our stuff, we were moving from our 2-star hovel to a 4-star Parisian hotel because we were "double booked". Yeah, right. It was definitely an improvement, and definitely the most educational trip I ever went on.
(The Axeman, Thu 17 Jan 2008, 23:31, Reply)

long time ago used to go on scooter runs to seaside resorts
#1 We asked if they had suitable off road parking, yes they replied. No they didnt when we arrived.

got there, and shown to the rooms. Well more like a broom cupboard.

then the 'man' of the house said 'we dont like people bringing girls back, some people did once and broke things in the room' - arse

then breakfast consisted of some crappy food, and the owners grandson running about with a pair of Y fronts on being a twat, ideal for paedos maybe, but not for me.

also they said they were close to wherever the evenings events were being held, close being a fooking long walk whilst totally blotto miles away from the rest of the people we were mates with.

#2 another scooter event. similar again with regards to location to the evening events but they had a pay TV (a box on the wall!) that 50p gave you 2 hours of tele or somewhat.

cant really remember much about the place, but the coin box on the wall could be opened with a knife, so we had free tv for the weekend ;)

#3 a new year out with mates and said i could crash at the house. it was 2 mins from the pubs and great.

what wasnt great was the 'bed' was a skanky matress on the floor, covered in all sorts (i am sure Iraq wanted it for germ warfare) and i woke up with a ciggy end or 3 under my head 9i dont smoke). the 1st train the next morn was about 7:30, i was on it.

#4 on another scooter do the double bed when i sat on it made a noise and the frame had broke on a corner and now the corner was on the floor. being a bit peeved at this i influenced the other 3 corners to break as well so at least i had a bed that was horizontal to sleep on.

#5 on a course in london and the website of the hotel said 1/2 mile from euston station, so was booked into it as the training was next door.

the hotel was about 1.5 miles away and a good 25-35 minute walk each day. I didnt mind as the weather was luckily pleasant.
(HomerJH, Thu 17 Jan 2008, 23:28, Reply)

I was
at a works do in Maidstone once next to a hotel. Got pretty pissed so me and a couple of mates decided to go for a wander around the hotel and cause some trouble. Couldn't really find much to do and was feeling quite tired so went into one final room where there was a huge blue rug. "Lovely!" I thought, so went for a lie down.

Turns out the big blue rug was an indoor swimming pool
(davefromkent, Thu 17 Jan 2008, 23:16, 4 replies)

Butlins
I stayed at Butlins one weekend. There was full (but very, very old) plate of dinner on the table in my chalet when I arrived. :o

I also accompanied two female friends back to two bloke's house (in case anything dodgy happened). I slept in an armchair and woke up with an intense itch on the crevice above my anus, and continued to do so for day's afterwards!

Best one was sleeping over at a mates'. I got bored and quietly explored the setee's cracks for money when everyone was asleep and recovered about 10 quid! Hurray!
(Nibi, Thu 17 Jan 2008, 22:59, Reply)

the Good Sleep
in Cologne, Germany.

My Dad's work's travel agent screwed up our Ibis booking and the only room left seemingly in the whole of the city was a 'family room' at the "Good Sleep". Apparently, their idea of a family room was one double bed, with a single mattress on the floor between said double bed and the door. It wasn't exactly en-suite either - one bathroom for the whole corridor (and my parents had to climb over me to get to it!). It was like being back at uni!
( Mrs Trouser is probably annoying Dave just by being here on, Thu 17 Jan 2008, 22:45, Reply)

Having just started a new job
I was sent to Cornwall for a week. Yay! in November. Boo. The job mainly consisted of standing around in the cold and rain knee deep in muddy/ waste filled trenches on landfill sites melting bits of pipework together to draw gas out of the site. By the end of the day i was filthy and stank.

Sadly the pub I was booked into was having some problems with its heating, so there was no hot water for a bath on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday so it was cold showers to get clean. To make things worse the chimney in the bar was fucked, so every time someone went in or out of the bar the fire belched a cloud of smoke which really spoiled the beer.

By way of inadvertent revenge, by the time we left, the car pack looked more like a corner of the tip due to the amounts of stinking crap that fell off our cars and vans overnight.

Served them right the inbred bastards who were too tight to get a plumber and chimney sweep.
( mazurka wants two's up on your mum., Thu 17 Jan 2008, 22:37, Reply)

Bogeys on wall
Drove around 200 miles for first and last ever trip to Blackpool. Eventually found B& B to stay in, paid in advance and hit the town a look around. Returned to the room for the night and noticed green/brown marks all over the wall over the bed. Clearly the previous occupant(s) had decided to wipe bogeys all over the wall - some fresher than others. If the B&B owner does not bother to wipe bogeys off the wall, how clean is the rest of the room? Drove back home without staying.
(poodleseatnoodles, Thu 17 Jan 2008, 22:30, 1 reply)

Fawlty Towers spin-off
I've stayed in some dives in my time, but the oddest experience had to be a hotel in Weston-Super-Mare.

On arrival, the owner asked me if I had a load of 5p's. I told him that I hadn't and asked him why he wanted to know. He seemed disappointed, but didn't really explain his request beyond the fact that I apparently looked like the kind of guy who'd be carrying a load of 5p's.

I was there with a colleage and we went down to the restaurant for an evening meal. They told us that it was booked up for an event (no mention of this when booking or on arrival) but found us a table on the obvious understanding that they were doing us a huge favour.

Later, we retired to the bar, where there was a rather disturbing looking portrait of the owner's wife on the wall. I swear to this day that the eyes followed you around the room.

On the day of departure (fortunately, I was only there for one night) I tried to pay by Amex. He said "Have you not got anything else? They charge a lot of commission you know." I paid on Visa, and was leaving when I noticed the "American Express cards welcome" sign.

I let it go. I just wanted to get the hell out of the place.
( Horatio P Lemming, Thu 17 Jan 2008, 22:30, Reply)

Bed for the night?
Maybe this QOTW should open a new forum: "I need to be in e.g., Bolton on the 24th May, can you spare a bit of floor". We could all go to our gigs / meet loved ones still living with parents / fancy a night out, etc., and not have to take a mortgage out to do so. If there's anyone out there in Scarborough it would have saved me and Mr P paying 90 quid to sleep in the pit of Hell.

Or if you are not willing to let strangers in your house, local knowledge is worth it's weight in gold - tell us where the nice, cheap b&b is to be found
( no longer a user, Thu 17 Jan 2008, 22:25, 1 reply)

I had a load of stoner mates who had some novel ideas for furtniture repairs
One evening I had to sleep on the sofa. Unfortunately the day before it had collapsed from over use. Some bright spark had replaced all the nice springs and stuff with a mixture of bricks and breezeblocks, He put the cushions back and it looked as good as new.

Despite the vast quantities of (ahem) anesthetic it was about as soft as a pile of rubble and to add injury to insult a badly constructed part collapsed in the night, leading me to bang my head and chip a tooth.
( mazurka wants two's up on your mum., Thu 17 Jan 2008, 22:23, Reply)

Converted Old Peoples Home
I used to work in horseracing, for this mob: www.turftrax.co.uk. A couple of years ago, we were up at Doncaster, getting ready for the St. Ledger. Seeing as it was the St. Ledger, there weren't any rooms to be found in our usual hotel, so we were booked into another hotel, in a small town called Thorne. Now, I'm from the Doncaster/Scunthorpe area, and when I heard that we were staying in Thorne, alarm bells began to ring. Thorne is a mining town, with probably the last coal mine in the area. It is also rougher than a badger's arsehole. But, we were willing to give the place the benefit of the doubt, so off we drove at the end of the day. We got there to find that we were staying in what appeared to be an old peoples home that had closed, and had been converted into a B&B. We could tell, as they'd even left the NHS door hangers on the doors! It was atrocious. The rooms hadn't been cleaned, we had been told that the rooms were all en-suite, which is true if you consider a bog & a sink to be a bathroom! I think that there were two working bathrooms between 40-odd rooms, which was no use at all. In the pub later that evening, we shared our horror stories about the place, and we all decided that we were off in the morning. So, first thing, we're all there trooping out with our bags and there's the manager (complete with apron as he was cooking the breakfast) with a shocked look on his face asking us where we were going! We told him in no uncertain terms that the place was a shithole and they'd fed a load of bullshit to our office when the place was booked, and we were off. We ended up having a fry-up in a nice cafe in one of the parks in Doncaster on our way to the course, as there was no way that we were going to trust the food at that place. We called the office and told them that there was no way on earth that we were going back to the place, so they had better sort some other accomodation out for use. I ended up staying at my parents (and doing some serious damage to my dad's collection of single malt whiskey), and the rest of the guys ended up in a travelodge near Retford.

Apart from that place, all the other places we stayed were Ok, the best had to be the Chichester Gate hotel, with huge rooms and a pool!
(Raystorm, Thu 17 Jan 2008, 22:18, Reply)

London, expensive and worthless
Never planned to be in London... but I hitchhiked through the tunnel from France into London (I amazed myself there). So, I was glad I found something at 22:00 at night.

But I got a noisy room in a hostel, shared with 3 others. Cold shower. A queue of at least 15 minutes for a single piece of dry toast in the morning. Pay extra for a croissant. Not what I'd expect in a modern city like London. And the price... 25 pounds/night.

Not the very worst, but surely one of the worst price/quality ratios.
(Captain Panic, Thu 17 Jan 2008, 22:04, Reply)

Whilst we are on the subject...
I'm taking my lovely wife to see David Tennant in Hamlet at the RSC in Stratford upon Avon in August. Anyone know any good places to stay where I won't need to get out my sonic screwdriver to fix the bed?
(MadBouncyDog Barking at the moon since, Thu 17 Jan 2008, 22:04, 1 reply)

The worst night of my life
Ladies and gentlemen, and those of you who haven't possibly decided yet, pray allow me to regale you with the story of the worst night of my life. You may ask how is it related to the question? A fair one, to be true. You will see, as you read on.

It was September 2004, and I'd just been informed by my now ex-fiancee that she wanted to go on a break. Also, could I come down to Nottingham to bring back some of her stuff, and I could collect some of mine. Admittedly, the normal reaction in this situation is to advise the person in question to go and boil their head in hydrocyanic acid. However, considering that there was a PS2 in the mix, this wasn't an option. So, I got my cash together and went down to Nottingham. From Warrington. As a student, on a student budget. Which as you can imagine is tighter than a penguin's arsehole.

So, I arrive in Nottingham, thinking this would be a simple exchange of goods, a quiet drink down the pub, crash on her floor, and then home. Oh boy, was I wrong! First of all, her family was there. Now I never liked her family- most of all her mother, who was the worst harridan you could ever meet. Plus, to borrow Legless' turn of phrase, she was so fat she had planets in her own orbit. Or was that flies? I fear I shall never know, and I am also digressing. When I arrived, her family took French leave of the place. That is, buggered off faster than a regiment of cheese-eating surrender monkeys at Verdun.

A minor problem, thought I, as I wondered inside, to be confronted by a rather odd sight. My now ex-fiancee, hand in hand with someone who was previously a mate. At the time, I just said congratulations as it gave me such a broadside that everything was knocked out of whack. Still, at least I was polite at the time. Worse still, we still went down the pub. What an odd crowd we made... bitch troll, her new beau, me, and her little sister. Yes, this was odd. And I texted a friend to tell her what was happening. Her response was "What the fuck are you doing there? Get out!". No dice. I was stuck there for the night. So I ended up crashing the night on her floor, her sister on the bed, bitch troll went up to her new beau's room. A situation which completely crushes the ego, please allow me to assure you.

And just when you think it couldn't possibly get any worse... the fire alarm went off at 4am. And then the bitch troll nicked the PS2.

As a postscript to this though, I later found out that two hours after we had the "Let's go on a break talk" she was in bed with the poor bastard. And from this, for some reason I signed up with an organisation to work abroad in a summer camp, spent three months effectively living in a shed and had the time of my life. So it's not all bad.
( jim_bob can herd cats., Thu 17 Jan 2008, 21:54, 1 reply)