On pianos.
I've been indulging myself for the past few days by watching the webcams on the Haggis Hunt website;http://haggishunt.scotsman.com/This preposterous activity is a bit of ponderous fun set up by the Scotsman newspaper, the premise is that you watch the webcams (of which there are eight set up in Scotland and two more in London and New York respectively) and every now and again a haggis will appear in the image. Once you have spotted the beast, you click a little button, and you are entered in a prize draw. In the fevered imaginations of the competition organisers, the haggis is a curious creature, a bit like an inflated duck-billed platypus.The chief charm for me is to be able to look at places like Renfield and Buchanan streets in Glasgow and know what the weather is like.
I introduced the Nottingham correspondant to this gentle pastime a couple of days ago; and last night she was enthusing about the idea of a stay at Gleneagles (one of the prizes); I promised to explain why I felt that this was a prize I could do without. I should perhaps explain that I spend a lot of time in hotels, and the sort of clients who can afford the companies I work for don't go in cheap hotels. The undeniable truth, however, is that it doesn't matter how many stars a hotel has, under the glossy surface they are a pretty disgusting place to be. I've all too often been working in places like the Dorchester, Savoy, Grosvener House, Park Lane Hilton etc etc, when out of the corner of your eye you see the rodents scurrying away. You never want to pick anything up, in case there's something wriggling away underneath it and they always seem to smell bad too.
A few years ago I was booked to light a show, the idea being that we could take this into hotels and perform it for anybody who could afford to pay for it. The show itself was a portmanteau piece; hits from the shows with some sort of a linking theme. We did it a couple of times, and then we were booked for a conference of swedish cardiologists at Gleneagles Hotel. As with almost all of these large hotels, no thought had been given to the logistics of getting stuff in and out, because so many of these operations are 24 hour, large and awkward objects are customarily shifted in the wee small hours. When you're putting on a show, however, this is not really an option. So, we had to unload our set, staging and technical gubbins into the great dining room during breakfast and lunch. Not only that, but the only way in was through the kitchen, while they were trying to prepare 500 meals or so, I'm sure that their day was immeasurably enhanced by the procession of flight cases, stage decking and so forth.
We set ourselves up, with a fascinated, if bovine audience of diners. I need to point out that although we were self-contained, the only item we did not bring was a piano, as most hotels have one or two kicking about the place. The majordomo presented to us, with great pride, a brand new gleaming and glossy white lacquered boudoir grand piano and our MD was suitable impressed. We did the show, our cardiologists had a jolly time and we began packing up. It wasn't until we were nearly finished that the night shift came to collect the piano; it had arrived on a special trolley, swaddled in padding and was reverentially unwrapped and installed. The night crew simply tipped it onto its long side and without removing its legs or making any other effort set off down the great dining room at a brisk trot pushing the piano before them. The dining room is a couple of hundred feet long and can be sub-divided, the divisions being delineated by metal strips set into the carpet. Each time the piano hit one of these strips a bit more lacquer was planed off with a nasty screaming noise. We could do nothing but watch open mouthed, as several thousands of pounds worth of piano was being stripped down to the bare wood in front of us. That, for what it's worth, is why I don't want to go to Gleneagles, that, and my aversion to golf of course.
posted by Lampy @ 1/15/2006 11:30:00 am
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