Claridge’s grew nine storeys in the last decade: it’s a metaphor. The ornamental 1897 castle on Brook Street has expanded to fit the available space. Though it grew by half, it never closed, and workmen dug out the basement by hand. In one room, Claridge’s was a building site: in another, a dream world. We are trekking through metaphors now. We are up to our necks.
The children eating the Nutella, banana and whipped cream crêpes look deranged
Hotels are like buses: they have infinite possibilities. That is what they are for. To not be home. Like Alec Guinness, who lived in the Connaught with his share of the profits of Star Wars, which shamed him (the Connaught is the anti-Tatooine), I would like to live in a hotel. I would like to live in a suite in Claridge’s, but I think I would go insane. W.H. Auden warned about the dangers of euphoria. Too much of it, and you are not fit for anything.
Perhaps that is why Dwight Eisenhower fled Claridge’s for Kingston upon Thames before D-Day. He wouldn’t have taken Normandy from here. Too much spa.
Most popular
