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2006-03-06 - 9:46 a.m.

Konigswinter, Germany.

Let me tell you something.

Bustin� make me feeeeeeeeel good.

No, not that.

So I�m in this enormo-suite in the snowy mountains overlooking the Rhine. It�s the kind of living arrangement I could definitely hunker down into for the odd decade or so. I�m surrounded on three sides by balcony and scenery that means serious panoramic business and no mistake. Previous occupants: Breshnev, Arafat, JFK (not at the same time, though that is the hottest threesome since Moses). The only reason is that the hotel capacity is 250 and there are 12 guests here and I guess they figured they may as well knock my socks off if they have the room lying empty. Well, even a bumbling unsophisticate such as myself can appreciate the presidential treatment, so consider all my footwear well and truly knocked off, mein host.

It�s always funny turning up at these places. If you�re me, I mean, and not someone who has paid with money that they earned and looks the part and has every right to be here. I bundled up to reception after a morning hiking up some muddy hill, looking for all the world like an out of work farmhand, and as I check in and they check me out, I can only think of that scene from Ferris Bueller�s Day Off:

Maitre D�: Hello, may I help you?
Ferris: You can sure as hell try. I'm Abe Froman, party of three for�is there a problem?
M: You're Abe Froman? The sausage king of Chicago?
F: Yeah, that's me.
M: I'm very busy. Why don't you kids go back to the clubhouse?
F: Are you suggesting I'm not who I say I am?
M: I'm suggesting that you leave before I have to get snooty.

They never get snooty, of course, and one wash and brush up later, I don�t look so much like I should be working my way up to a job cleaning out the ashtrays and things are hunky and, if I might be so bold, dory.

What with the snow and the absence of any guests, it feels a bit like The Shining. I keep wondering if the staff are just a figment of my imagination, or if the silent, cavernous ballroom will suddenly fill up with a ghostly cocktail party, or if I should use an axe to get through to the bathroom.

The funniest incident was when I first came into my room, though. There was a TV blaring out muzak, and I left it on whilst I went to have a shower. When I came out, the TV was not there.

I checked my failing memory banks. It had definitely been there earlier. Either I had been hallucinating, or I was on some German version of Candid Camera or the hotel was in fact so posh that some kind of TV butler bought the set in and out according to your viewing needs. Mostly I just stood and stared at the TV-sized space on top of the cabinet for about thirty minutes, doubting my sanity. In a moment of desperation, I took the remote control and pressed the �On� button. And this happened:



It had mechanicaly disappeared into its own cavity. So that added nicely to the James Bond delusions that I�ve been nurturing since I arrived. Give me a posh, secluded, empty, snowbound hotel and my imagination does run away with me, that�s for damn sure as hiccups.

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