Brighton hotels

I still haven’t booked my hotel for Lib Dem conference in Brighton this year.

Every time I fire up Google to try and find a suitable location, I get overwhelmed with a vast sense of desparation and put it off until some other time.

They all seem much more expensive than the first time I went to conference down there, when I stayed in a lovely little place with homemade jam for breakfast, and room with four beds in and just little old me.  I have no recollection at all how far from the conference centre it was.
What I can remember is staggering home drunk every night and making a flavoursome concoction by mixing coffee and hot chocolate sachets from the stand with the kettle.

I also spotted, that time, that there were lots and lots of hotels in the vicinity with signs saying “Rooms available – rates starting at £50” — so I resolved the following time not to book accommodation in advance but trundle along the seafront with my wheelie suitcase and find something suitable on arrival.

Big mistake, as when I tried to do that, even the places with signs in the window saying £50 were telling me that in conference week, their basic rate was more like £150.

In the end, I did find a seafront hotel with budget rates, but it was a complete fleapit with a desperately uncomfortable beds, and paper thin walls.  Two nights in a row a man and a woman had a very loud, very unpleasant argument, and I didn’t get a wink of sleep.

That particular stay ended very well, though, because my then boss had paid for a room in the Hilton conference hotel but was unable to use it for the whole week.  I was able to move into the vacated room for the last few days.  It was rather superb.  A vast suite with a sea front and a balcony and more floor space than my house. I suspect all my neighbours would have been MPs and MEPs.

This time, there’s no way I can afford to stay at the conference hotel since it’s charging significantly over £100 a night.  So I’m looking for a nice little hotel that preferably has free wifi and a kettle in the room (I don’t mind — in fact I probably prefer — taking my own tea and coffee) and a bed I can actually sleep on, not a million miles from the conference centre and not megabucks during conference week.  And not fully booked already!

Graffito


Graffito

Originally uploaded by nilexuk.

Whilst the drains were being done earlier in the year, we noticed this pencilled note on the wall under the car port – “As the grate was locked, I had to leave it (the coal) here”

When did anything in this house last burn coal? I seem to recall from the house searches that Nottingham has been a smokeless zone since 1966, but the note could refer to smokeless coal, or it could have been burnt since. There are definitely people around who burn smoking fuel in ignorance or defiance of the ban. Of course, the city — and the country — goes a different sort of smokeless next year.

The grate referred to isn’t there any more — it’s been bricked up and now the boiler vent comes out of it.

When we bought the house, much was made of the ‘electric woodburner’ that had recently been installed. The thing is terribly kitchy and makes an unbelievable racket when you turn it on. It is connected to real flue that snakes over the lounge ceiling and is boxed out through the hallway to the front door. The presence of the real flue — and almost complete absence of radiators on the ground floor — suggest there was something that burned real fuel even after the central heating was put in.

Come on Paraguay!

Apparently some sort of football tourney will begin today, and a meeting I’m at has been scheduled particularly early so that it will be over before the sport begins.

I am not amused.

Smudge is ill


10052006(001).jpg

Originally uploaded by nilexuk.

Back from vet.

Fudge fine.

Smudge however has heart murmur, likely the cause of his breathing difficulty, rather than the collar-caused throat injury.

Vet is recommending ultrasound scan to see the extent of the murmur, then possibilities of operation (although cats with heart murmurs present high risk for anaesthesis) or medical intervention, ie tablets.

Will leave it a week or two before going to ultrasound, I think, to let
Smudge get used to us not being evil people who want to stuff him into the cat carrier at the drop of a hat.

Our cat feeder for the weekend is convinced she needs to walk around on tippy toe so as not to startle him into heart failure, but since he jumps whether you make a noise or not, it’s clear that sudden adrenaline rushes don’t do him much harm.

Cix:cats have suggested we tell the CPL and see if they’ll help us with the costs, but to be honest, the charity needs the money for feeding their current charges, and we should be be able to afford the treatment.

They also have cunning ruses for getting cats to take pills, involving inuring them to treats by coating cat biscuits in cream cheese or fish paste then substituting the biscuit for the tablet once you’ve won their trust. Smudge doesn’t like cheese, Fudge can’t get enough of it. Both of them turned their noses up at Wilco’s finest cat treats.

Finally

That long-coveted, long needed replacement laptop is mine. After a day of humming and hawing, I bought a Compaq Presario from PC World.

All I’ve had time for tonight is delousing it — removing all the Norton, AOL and other unnecessary crap, including some program that actually spoke to me (“Hi – I’m here to connect you to the internet!” – shades of Mr Foster, it’s time for your upgrade!). All unnecessary. Connecting to the internet just needs me to correctly key in my wireless router cipher, something that takes more attempts than it should. Why does the Windows doubrey insist on you typing all 25 characters in twice? Mad.
I have also installed the essential progs — AVG first, then Firefox, then, er, Sid Meier’s Civ IV. (New machine carefully specced so that it had enough oomph to play the new version)
No more time for now. No time to record fragments of Ulysses for LV, no time to type up the minutes of tonight’s meeting. No time to actually play Civ.

And the weekend — we’re going straight from work to an enormous cottage in the Peak district where a superbly organised friend has marshalled 14 university friends to be in the same place at the same time. So it would be rude to play with my new computer. Wouldn’t it? Yes, definitely. Um…. Maybe… just in the evenings…?

NO!

RIS and SAC

I’m on two scrutiny committees on the Council this year, Regneration, Infrastructure and Sustainability and Serving the Adult Community.

Anyone who reads B3ta will know that RIS is funny.  It’s b3tan slang for people who just don’t get it. A guy posted a picture of his local Morrisons supermarket which had had a lightbulb failure so that its sign read MOR   ONS. The guy who didn’t get it posted “RIS?”

I’ve a feeling the good people of b3ta would find SAC funny too.

R’s party

I didn’t blog last week, so missed mentioning R’s fancy dress party, “heroes and villains.”

Best set of photos is here, including me as CSI Grissom (a hero who doesn’t shave! Yay!) complete with gun and ALS, and P as Austin Powers. But look out for Jason King, two Cruellas de Ville, Classic Movie Villain, Screaming Heroine…  Party included Dr Who.  Of course.

Given R’s penchant for the piquant, I made the crazy vodka-soaked, white-chocolate stuffed, dark chocolate coated chillis.  They were surprisingly edible.  The vodka they were soaked in was poured back into the bottle and had quite a kick given it’d had only had 24 hours in contact with chillis.  Piping the peppered, vodka-laced white chocolate through a baggie with a corner cut off was easier than I expected.  The dark chocolate refused to stick to the outside of the chillis.