Word: london
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Wander into the Reeves private hotel, a tidy Victorian row house overlooking Shepherd's Bush Green, and you can easily imagine yourself in any of central * London's small, discreet hotels. The woman at the front desk will offer a cordial greeting as you check in, tell you about the facilities and invite you to have tea or a drink at the bar. Unless, of course, you are a man. In that case, you will be urged, very graciously, to leave...
That is a point much in dispute in the British travel industry. The existence of the Reeves is an indication of how rankled some travelers are by the standards of other London hotels. The Businesswoman's Travel Club, founded two years ago to "provide a voice for women who receive second-class service when they travel," conducted a survey earlier this year that yielded a flood of complaints about life on the road. Many women are tired of ironing skirts with a trouser press or drying long hair on a space heater. Says Kirsty Maxey, 25, a marketing executive...
While the chains have been redesigning rooms and retraining staff to keep up with women's demands, the entrenched London bastions are unconcerned. "I don't believe there should be separate quarters for the ladies, like some female ghetto," says Giles Shepard, managing director of the Savoy group of hotels. "It is women who are made to feel more uncomfortable when a lot of special arrangements are made for them." Many businesswomen would agree -- so long as simple courtesy, convenience and safety are not viewed as "special arrangements...
...birth of a band: at a London flat some eight years ago, Shane MacGowan, who had more of his teeth back then, picked up a guitar and started to play an old Irish tune, Paddy Worked at the Railways. He played it fast; he played it very fast, in the best postpunk, frontal-assault style. His pal Spider Stacy clocked MacGowan's hands at "940 light-years an hour." That time, of course, was unofficial. But looking back now, it has become the official beginning of the Pogues...
...London hotel managers claim that Japanese guests fill up the tubs, leave the taps on, then pull out the drain plugs to ensure a constant flow of clear water. The result: heavy damage from the overflow flooding through carpets and cascading into rooms below. Says Geoffrey Gold, general manager of the Swallow International Hotel, where 20% of the guests are Japanese: "It got to the point where an average of one bathroom a day was flooded." Some hotels are warning Japanese guests that flooders will face fines; others have made a simple but costly technological adjustment: installing drains in bathroom...