Desk hidden in an alcove under a ceiling so low you risk banging your head while you sit there. 10 points.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nShower taps<\/h3>\n
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\nHotel Bathroom Plumbing<\/span><\/p>\nAdd points for all which apply. You may score on several criteria!<\/p>\n
\n- Scary arrangement of multiple pipes and taps in different positions and of different styles, with no indication what does what. There is at least a small risk that one turns off the water supply to the whole hotel. 10 points.<\/li>\n
- Indicators engraved in tiny letters with zero contrast against the metal. 2 points.<\/li>\n
- Ambiguous engravings (e.g. does \u201cC\u201d stand for \u201cCelsius\u201d, \u201ccold\u201d or \u201ccalde\/chaude\u201d?). 2 points.<\/li>\n
- Perfectly smooth cylindrical or domed rotary knobs which are impossible to turn with soapy hands. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Mount on the wall for the shower head either absent or broken. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Mount for the shower head positioned so high that it both restricts the flow and ensures that what does come out floods the entire room. 5 points. Add another 5 if it\u2019s the most expensive hotel of the trip.<\/li>\n
- Complex lever tap with about 5 degrees of freedom, so you can theoretically adjust temperature, flow and the use or multiple outlets by correctly twiddling it. 2 points.<\/li>\n
- Complex lever tap with about 5 degrees of freedom which turns on OK but doesn’t stop flow when returned to original position. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- No thermostatic control, and the hot and cold flow rates are so different it\u2019s impossible to correctly adjust the temperature, and a micron of control movement can swing the water temperature from just above 0\u00b0C to around 60\u00b0C. 10 points.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
I know in theory what perfect zero looks like. Two lever taps, one of which sets the flow, the other of which sets the temperature with thermostatic control and a stop at about 40\u00b0C. Flow control is indicated by clear icons (e.g. 0 to multiple drops), etched in a large font and a colour which clearly contrasts with the metal. Temperature is indicated by blue and red dots or arrows, or maybe temperatures in \u00b0C. The handset or head is sturdily mounted about 2m from the base.<\/p>\n
I may know what perfect zero arrangement looks like, but I also know what a unicorn looks like. In neither case have I ever actually encountered one.<\/p>\n
[Sod\u2019s Law: about 10 minutes after writing this I had a shower in a room at the Ramada Cwrt Bleddyn, near Newport in Wales. Shower arrangement exactly as described! Yes Jemima, unicorns do exist! Don\u2019t celebrate too much, the room scored well under several other headings\u2026]<\/p>\n
Bath Taps, Plugs and Associated Fittings<\/h3>\n\n- No bath plug. 3 points<\/li>\n
- Bath plug wrong size. 5 points (if you\u2019re not going to bother, don\u2019t pretend).<\/li>\n
- Bath plug loose and has to be held in place with foot. 3 points.<\/li>\n
- Plug is a spring-loaded popup positioned exactly under the buttock of an average height bath user. You shift your weight slightly and realise about 2 minutes later that the water has disappeared. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Taps placed to scald toes (or head) as water added. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Hourglass shaped bath which is wide enough for your shoulders but not for your hips. 10 points WTF.<\/li>\n
- Shower cubicle so narrow you can\u2019t reach the lower half of your body once inside. 10 points.<\/li>\n
- Guest shelf in bathroom is above and behind toilet, difficult to reach and occasionally pitches your belongings down the pan. 10 points.<\/li>\n
- Soap \u201cdish\u201d in shower is a wire basket with holes so large your soap falls straight through unless very carefully aligned. 5 points<\/li>\n
- Soap dish has a convex surface, or slopes down towards the front, so soap simply slides off. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Nowhere to hang wet clothing. 5 points. (Exemptions apply for hotels a long way from the sea with no pool, but beach\/resort hotels really should get this right.)<\/li>\n
- No towel rail\/hook. 4 points.<\/li>\n
- Towel hooks are mounted about 6″ below the ceiling, out of reach of anyone less than about 6′ tall. 4 points.<\/li>\n
- Floor in wet room slopes at the wrong angle so water pools outside shower area. Hotel helpfully provides squeegee to move water around. 3 points. Add 5 points if there’s no towel hook near the shower and you put your towel on the floor. Yes, there\u2026<\/li>\n
- Tap is connected to plumbing but not screwed to basin, so whole tap and pipe assembly move every time you turn it on or off. 10 points, or claim 30 points if the inevitable plumbing disaster happens during your stay.<\/li>\n
- While you are at breakfast on the last morning of your stay, housekeeping helpfully remove all the towels. You only discover this when you are naked and in the shower. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Towel rail has rusted sharp edge on rear surface, so you slash your hand removing the towel. 20 points.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Shaving\/Make-up Light\/Mirror<\/h3>\n\n- Large mirror directly behind sink or dressing table with built-in rim light. 0 points.<\/li>\n
- No mirror. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Shaving mirror in pitch blackness. 5 points. (I only discovered it was there, after my ablutions, when the sun came up!)<\/li>\n
- Shaving mirror lit by small lamp directly above with result like the Bohemian Rhapsody <\/em>video. 3 points.<\/li>\n
- Shaving mirror is the size of a postage stamp, so you can\u2019t see the whole face in one go. 3 points.<\/li>\n
- Shaving mirror lit by a single small lamp from one side with result that your shave or make up for the day is different on the two sides of your face. 8 points.<\/li>\n
- Due to random power outages there is no light for pre-dawn rise, and you have to shave or apply make up wearing a head torch. 10 points.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Toilet position<\/h3>\n\n- Toilet too close to door. 3 points.<\/li>\n
- Toilet too close to wall, so you can\u2019t sit straight. 5 points. Add 5 points if it\u2019s squashed into the corner of a large bathroom getting on for the size of a tennis court.<\/li>\n
- Add another 5 points if the toilet roll holder projects out over the seat, so you have to carefully lower yourself onto one side then slide sideways into position.<\/li>\n
- Toilet adjacent to head of bed, separated only by a thin curtain. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Active and spare toilet rolls are strung on a rope from the ceiling, conveniently positioned for when required. In principle this is a good design, however in a tropical rainstorm water gets in, runs down the rope, and soaks both rolls. Score 5 to 30 depending on urgency at the point of discovery!<\/li>\n
- You are sharing the room, and toilet seat creaks like an old wooden door in a comedy horror film. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Toilet has spring-loaded seat which rises every time you adjust your weight. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Toilet has spring loaded seat with the toilet roll holder just out of reach, and liquid soap on the floor so your feet are slipping. (Again, I’m not making this up although I will admit it was in the hotel’s communal area, not an individual room.) 20 points.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Lights<\/h3>\n
Permit me to dream for a minute. Perfect zero consists of a large, powerful central light or cluster which fills the room with light, plus a selection of subtle spotlights or uplighters at key points. You can choose any combination, but you can then turn them all off, or back on to the previous settings, with two master switches, by the bed and at the door. If the room is genuinely dark once the curtains\/shutters are closed and the main lights are off, there\u2019s some form of very low level night light which includes the bathroom area, but you again have control to turn it off if required. A man can dream, surely?<\/p>\n
\n- The only illumination appears to be a couple of captive glow-worms in opposite corners of the room. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Lots of independent lights, each with separate switches. 3 points (at least you can work this arrangement out\u2026)<\/li>\n
- Lots of switches, which control random subsets of the lights. None turns all the lights on or off. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Room is so dark you can\u2019t get to the bathroom during the night without turning everything back on again. 5 points.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Heating and Temperature Control<\/h3>\n\n- There\u2019s an easily accessible control panel on which you set a temperature of your choice between say 16\u00b0C and 24\u00b0C. Once you\u2019ve done that invisible systems quietly heat or cool the air and maintain your chosen temperature. Nul points, and count yourself very, very lucky.<\/li>\n
- No heating, or heating not working. Exemptions for hotels in the Tropics where ambient temperature always exceeds 20\u00b0C, otherwise 10 points.<\/li>\n
- No AC, or AC not working. Exemptions if the ambient temperature never exceeds 20\u00b0C, otherwise 10 points.<\/li>\n
- Heating sounds like a water tank being dragged slowly over rough cobbles. 10 points.<\/li>\n
- Heating sounds like Concorde warming up for take-off about 50m away (OK, maybe that\u2019s a slight exaggeration\u2026). 20 points.<\/li>\n
- Temperature control locked. 5 points. Add 2 points for every 1\u00b0C between your preferred temperature and the hotel\u2019s dictat.<\/li>\n
- Temperature control has to be reset by standing on a chair and toggling a master switch above bathroom door. 3 points.<\/li>\n
- Heating is switched off centrally at the coldest point in the early hours of the morning. 10 points.<\/li>\n
- Heating goes off when you leave the room, so you have just got it warming up on a freezing night but by the time you get back from dinner it’s frozen again. 20 points.<\/li>\n
- At a resort named after a well-known desert, newly-built rooms (“hereinafter referred to as \u2018the ovens\u2019, m\u2019lud”) have large glass windows and doors facing the sun for much of the day, but no A\/C, no forced ventilation (e.g. a fan), and no means of natural ventilation such as an opening window. The only option is to open both the patio door facing the desert, and the main door facing the courtyard. Chance of invading creepie-crawlies 100%. Chance of invasion by something larger (e.g. drunk guest, curious camel, snake) non-zero. 30 points.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
TV Position and Inputs<\/h3>\n\n- TV is positioned so it cannot be viewed from the only chair. 10 points.<\/li>\n
- TV is positioned so it cannot be viewed from either chair or bed. 12 points.<\/li>\n
- TV has no modern inputs, so it\u2019s impossible to connect laptop to view recorded\/streamed programmes. 8 points.<\/li>\n
- TV has modern inputs, but it\u2019s attached to the wall or built into the furniture so they are inaccessible. 10 points.<\/li>\n
- Arcane \u201chotel\u201d software restricts channels and inputs but is hackable with a bit of googling and your own universal remote control. 5 points<\/li>\n
- Arcane \u201chotel\u201d software is not hackable. 10 points, but at least I enjoy the challenge.<\/li>\n
- TV has a smaller screen than my laptop. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- TV is an ancient communist-era set with tiny square CRT, no inputs and apparently only able to receive broadcasts from the same era. (This was at the Berlin Holiday Inn in 2014. Maybe it was some weird DDR theme, but no one told me…). 10 points.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Curtains, Blinds, and Windows<\/h3>\n\n- No curtains or blinds. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Curtains don\u2019t meet in the middle. 5 points. Add 5 points if room is directly opposite flashing green neon cross of an all night pharmacy.<\/li>\n
- Curtains don\u2019t reach the edges of the window. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Transparent curtains. 15 points WTF.<\/li>\n
- Porthole with no curtains carefully designed to admit the rising midsummer sun into your room at 3.30am. 20 points.<\/li>\n
- Curtains or blinds can be thrown wide open after a good night\u2019s sleep, to reveal your naked self to Canadians having breakfast at a table directly outside your room. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Window doesn’t quite fit window frame, so when the wind blows it whistles like something out of an old fairground Ghost Train. 5 points.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Tea\/Coffee Station<\/h3>\n\n- No tea\/coffee station. 5 points. That\u2019s just mean.<\/li>\n
- Supplies inadequate, or they appear to have been part-used by previous occupant. 5 points. (I accept this is an operational rather than a design error, but depressingly frequent.)<\/li>\n
- Kettle doesn’t fit under cold water tap. 3 points.<\/li>\n
- Kettle lead doesn’t reach a power socket without balancing the boiling kettle on arm of chair. 10 points.<\/li>\n
- In the middle of the night there\u2019s an odd scrabbling noise and you think you see the milk cartons moving across the desk of their own accord, but put it down as a hallucination due to your slightly drunken state. In the morning you find them at the other end, each punctured with a couple of tiny teeth marks and drained. 0 points, but it\u2019s one of the oddest ways I have been deprived of an early morning cup of tea.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Furniture, Storage and Luggage Racks<\/h3>\n\n- Insufficient wardrobe space. 3 points<\/li>\n
- Hanging rail in wardrobe only about 2\u2019 from the surface below, so impossible to hang clothes without wrinkling them. 3 points.<\/li>\n
- Bed and every surface covered in surplus cushions. 3 points.<\/li>\n
- You collect up surplus cushions to put them away, only to find that the wardrobe is already stuffed full of cushions, reminiscent of the Tribbles in Star Trek<\/em>. 8 points.<\/li>\n
- No bedside cabinet. 3 points.<\/li>\n
- Bedside cabinet on only one side of double bed. 3 points<\/li>\n
- Bedside cabinet top so full of hotel c**p that you can\u2019t put any of your own stuff on it. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- You move hotel c**p off bedside cabinet to make room for your own stuff, and the next time you stay they\u2019ve bolted\/wired the hotel c**p down. 8 points.<\/li>\n
- You use wire cutters to cut the wires and move the hotel c**p, and they finally get the message, but it means you always have to have wire cutters in your travel kit. 2 points.\n
<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n- No luggage racks or free space to lay down a suitcase. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Only one luggage rack\/space in a four-bed suite. 10 points. Really?<\/li>\n
- No room for a second suitcase but enough room for a two-person Jacuzzi. 3 points \u2013 at least this has its compensations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Accessibility<\/h3>\n\n- Bed is such a tight fit to room that you are unable to access both sides of the bed without climbing over it. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Have to limbo dance under a 3ft beam to access the bathroom (see picture below). 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Stairs down into bedroom directly from doorway. 10 points. Haha! (Look it up.)<\/li>\n
- Steep stairs down directly in middle of the bedroom, just off the line from bed to bathroom. 20 points.<\/li>\n
- Bath positioned under sloping roof which almost meets bath at the far end, making entry and exit a tricky manoeuvre. 5 points.<\/li>\n
- Shower itself decent size with perfect taps, but entrance so narrow you only just fit through sideways. Chimneying move required to swing yourself in and up over the step, using the glass partition as a hand-hold. 5 points if the glass partition doesn’t give way, otherwise a lot more…<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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