Hotels of note
Drawing inspiration from the courtesy notepads and pens provided in hotel rooms.
When I first started traveling for business, tea and coffee-making facilities in the room marked a hotel as good, at least in my personal AA Guide. Then I started to favour hotels with a trouser press; partly to ensure that I looked well-presented in the morning and partly through an untested theory that the trouser press could work as a sandwich toaster in an emergency. More recently, the presence of in-room TV complete with a decent sports package has been a must. And, since I am there for work, access to a suitably fast broadband connection is also a big plus.
But since the start of this year, I have attempted to re-embrace the analogue. And while I still want round-the-clock access to football highlights and a wi-fi connection fast enough to host a LiveStream, I now have a new benchmark to separate the good from the bad; the very good from the superb. And that ultimate test of quality is the presence of a functional notepad and pen.
Now, don’t get me wrong. As a professional journalist and occasional author, I carry multiple notebooks and multiple pens with me virtually everywhere I go. I even have specific preferences for both: traditional Field Notes notebooks; and Pilot V Sign pens with black liquid ink, since you’re asking. But there is something about a courtesy notepad and pen that I find oddly inspiring.
The article you’re reading now exists in cyberspace. But it was written and edited using a tiny notebook and pen that I found beside my bed at the Excelsior San Marco Hotel in Bergamo, Italy. My Medium article — The Great Displaced — was written first in a notepad at the Motel One in Hamburg, Germany (although the digital version would be written a few days later at the Ibis Hotel in the city). My video predicting a future littered with relics from our industrial present was penned on a notepad from the Hotel Ibis Styles Paris Eiffel Cambronne. And there are many more besides.
Of course, I still use my own notebooks and pens: sometimes out of choice; and sometimes out of necessity. I stayed in a hotel in Prague earlier this year that offered a stubby little pencil and a notepad consisting of a single sheet of poor quality paper. The fact that I can’t recall the name of the hotel is, perhaps, indicative of the importance I place upon pens and paper.
Sometimes, what I wrote about on those courtesy notepads could have been written anywhere and on anything. They are merely the product of my imagination.
But on other occasions, the paper and pen are an integral part of the storytelling process. Even though they were probably manufactured in China or mass produced in Taiwan, they are OF the place in which I encountered them. They are imbued with locality; they tap into a magical wellspring of regional inspiration that could not be sourced anywhere else. And they are also often the fastest route between inspiration and the capture of that precious idea.
The premise for the story — The Great Displaced — occurred to me in the reception of the hotel. My notepad and pen were in my pocket. So I sat down and started to write. Sure, I could have gone back to my room, pulled my MacBook from my bag and written it there. But by putting actual pen to actual paper, the story, the inspiration and all of the nuance was still fresh.
So yes, I still love in-room tea and coffee-making facilities and a decent broadband connection. But even hotels missing such luxuries can be saved by the presence of a notepad and pen.
