Monday, December 10, 2012

The lap of luxury and the abuse thereof

One of the huge downers of my career is being forced to stay in luxury hotels in European capitals for days at a time, reporting on high-level business conferences. Beautiful views, top-notch cuisine, bathroom-slash-wetroom the size of a barn, all the free wifi you can eat, attentive service - a man can get sick of it very quickly.

The problem with these big hotels is that you're just as asleep as when you're in the one star B&B down the road, so the trick is getting your value for money.

And this time round, it comes with the fact that the hotel charges £4.00 for a small bottle of mineral water. You know, the type that sells for 40p in your local Asda. Fortunately for our little scheme, the hotel always leaves a free bottle of said water in your room, and such is their attention to detail, they appear to check your facilities several times each day.

The trick, then, is to hide your water, and wait.

Then pounce.

Then wait again, the in-room safe bursting at the gills with the world's most expensive Peckham Spring water.

Then wait again. And again.

Christ knows how I'm going to get two dozen bottles of £4.00 mineral water on the plane home, but once it's back in Blighty, this time next year, Rodders, we'll be millionaires.

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