Something that really wound me up.

It’s not often that I comment on a newspaper article, but this one really got to me in a major way. I’ll post the story, and then put my thoughts at the end of it…

Karen

Now some things you hold on to - and some you just let go
Seems like the ones that you can't have
Are the ones that you want most

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In which I discover poverty...in the foyer of a Premier Inn
By Liz Jones

It's not great being poor in Britain.

The rich have their path through life smoothed and buffed. For the less well-off, everything – even the tiniest of things – is difficult.

Take my experience on Thursday. I drove down from the Lake District to London for work, not thinking I would be unable to book a hotel room because of the cancelled flights.

I rang all the usual places I stay in: fully booked, apart from a junior suite at the Haymarket Hotel that was going for £550, plus VAT, plus internet, plus breakfast. Even I baulked at that.

I finally got a room in a Premier Inn in Kensington. I couldn’t find it, never having had the need to notice it before. I called them. It turned out I was about 100ft from the hotel, but not one member of staff could read a map or even make themselves understood.

‘I am outside Earl’s Court Tube!’ I shouted.

‘Earl’s what? What iz that?’

In the end, the manager fetched an English-speaking guest who tried to talk me down. I got there.

No one would park my car, or knew how I could get to a car park. ‘Can you put my bag in my room while I find somewhere to park?’ I asked the manager. ‘No, we don’t put cases in rooms. This is a budget hotel.’

In the end, Kristina from Latvia took pity on me and watched my case until she ended her shift.

‘I have to be in my room in front of the TV by 8.30pm,’ I told the young Indian female member of staff when I finally returned, looking as though I’d been deployed in a war zone, from parking my car. ‘The debate! The Election!’ I yelled, just like Eddy in Absolutely Fabulous.

I was met with an uncomprehending stare. ‘Get me a glass of prosecco!’ I shouted, and people – normal people, the sort who are used to carrying their own cases and parking their own cars – began to point and stare.

‘Still or sparkling?’ the Indian woman said to me.

‘Sparkling!’ I snapped. ‘It only comes in sparkling!’

My room was hideous, with a sign over the taps saying, ‘Beware, hot water.’ Maybe the people who stay here need these sorts of instructions.

I’d missed the first half hour of the Prime Ministerial debate. All three were white, middle-aged, middle-class.

David Cameron made sure he remembered the names of the questioners and the name of a man in his constituency who came to him with cancer, just to prove he is in touch with the ‘little people’.

I also found it grating he kept mentioning his son, repeating how indebted he was to the nurses who looked after him. All three wanted to make sure they called members of our armed forces ‘heroes’ and ‘heroines’. I mean, come on, let’s just take it as read that polite policemen, good teachers, safe soldiers and lots of kind nurses are a good idea.

Gordon Brown couldn’t remember the names of people, but he sure as hell remembered the names of helicopters. He kept muttering how important it is for old people to be cared for in their own homes. Really? Is it? How revolutionary of him to come up with that.

Only Nick Clegg seemed genuine.

I’m one of the great undecided (I was nearly one of the great unwashed when I discovered my Premier Inn bathroom only had soap that came from a dispenser). I want my life to be easier (tax breaks for married couples!) but I have glimpsed what it’s like to be poor and it’s hideous and tiring and boring.

I’ve been driving a Ka because it’s cheaper than my BMW and I can’t tell you how motorists in London beep me and push me out the way. It’s as though suddenly I’ve become invisible.

My column the other week wondering why on earth people who earn more than £100,000 are always the ones being punished, tutted over by badly dressed BBC news reporters standing outside Westminster, was based on the assumption that only high earners work hard and have stress.

The next morning, after my cold night on a hard purple bed, I rushed through reception, trailing my own suitcase, at 7.30am. There at the purple console was the Indian woman from the night before. ‘Ye Gods,’ I said to her. ‘Don’t you ever go to bed?’

She laughed. She told me what she earns, ‘I am thinking just above the minimum’, and the hours she works; everything’s Premier, it seems, but the wages.

‘Are lots of people rude to you?’ I asked her. ‘Oh yes, it’s quite stressful.’

I asked if she knew who she was going to vote for. ‘When you went to park last night, we put the TV on in reception so you could watch it here. And so I saw some of it, and I thought Nick Clegg was a very nice man.’

Although it pains me to say this, I’m beginning to think so, too.

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Now I read Liz Jones’ thoughts on life on Exmoor every week (she publishes her version of a blog in the YOU magazine), and the more I read of her columns, the more I begin to think that this woman doesn’t live in the real world. Don’t get me wrong – moving to the countryside from the town can be a big move – you get so used to the facilities in the town that you expect the countryside to be the same.

Yes, I know that it can be difficult as a single person, but she doesn’t really help herself by insulting people in the local area in a national newspaper. Ok – she employs local people, but the comments are far more hurtful than the employment that she says that she brings to the area.

Then reading this entry this morning was the final straw, and I just saw red. She seems to be of the opinion that because there was no-one to park her car (I would rather park my own car than let someone else drive it thank you very much), and no-one to ferry her case to her room, that the accomodation offered (as well as the staff) were not worthy of being treated with respect. The comments about the other guests was unnecessary (and I am sorry to say becoming rather typical of someone who has lived her life in a sort of isolated vacuum of high fashion and stupid prices.)

If she was that bothered about the room, then why didn’t she ask for the Good Night Guarantee to be used? And as for the comment about the bathroom – I'm sorry, but I much prefer to take my own toiletries with me – even when I stay at a 4* hotel. That way, I know that the stuff that I am using is my choice.

As regular readers of my blog will know, I am not averse to staying at Premier Inn, and am more than happy to stay at one, because all I ask for when I am travelling in the UK is a decent bed, a good shower and somewhere safe for my car.

Needless to say, any sympathy that I had for Ms Jones has evaporated. Yes, I’ll continue to read her thoughts (and complaints) on life, but I am sorry to say that I’ll be taking her woes with a pinch of salt, as I consider them to be minor troubles that she has managed to bring on her own head.

Time to call this quits – I want to watch the re-run of the Chinese Grand Prix (I fell asleep trying to watch it live!)

Back tomorrow.

K.