Consuming Interest . .

•

. . A Dollar for the Bell-hop

BY LESLIE ADRIAN

THREE middle-aged Americans in grey flannel suits came into the hotel lounge. They ordered drinks, and the bill came to 14s. The host gave the waiter a pound note. 'That's OK,' he said, waving away the change.

Most American tourists are bombarded with literature telling them. How to Behave like the Natives before they pass the Statue of Liberty; but that is the way most of them tip. And as a consumer, I find their tipping alarming. Can we continue to expect reasonable service from restaurants and hotel staff who know they are not going to get more than 10 per cent. of the bill, if they also know they are going to get 30 per cent. from the Americans at the next table?

I was discussing the subject the other day with Miss Marguerite Allen, the representative of an American hotel organisation, part of whose job it is to travel the world collecting material for hotel brochures. The over-tipping, she thinks. is part nervousness at being abroad; part confusion over currency; part simply habit—'I found myself giving the bell-hop a dollar because I'm so used to it. That's what he would expect in the States.'

Would he, indeed! Then I hope he doesn't start expecting it here. It's up to ourselves, I suppose, to be strong-minded; but which of us is strong-minded?

It was on another subject, though, that I wanted to talk to Miss Allen. She is here as the guest. of BOAC, to look over some of the travel programmes for 1957; and I was anxious to hear her comments on British hotels. The American tourist will be even more Welcome if he can push up hotel standards (as he has been doing) without at the same time too violently pushing up hotel prices.

The point is, English hotels appear to have been gradually changing under the impact of American tastes; and we, who have to use them all the year round, have on balance reason to be grateful. What I wanted to find out from Miss Allen, therefore, was what American tastes and trends are today.

• She had some surprises for me. To begin with, American • tourists appear to enjoy our food (except, of course, our coffee; I suppose the con- tinuing horror of hotel coffee here might be cited as proof that American influence is not, after all. supreme). And they are ecstatic about the service. (This does not surprise me. I was once, for twenty- four hours, a guest on an American liner. The food was attractively presented; each dish, how- ever plain, was given an agreeable, homely- sounding name. But the waiter was always hang- ing around with the next course—sometimes the next two courses—,obviously anxious to get the whole tedious business over and done with.

Again : I had not suspected that the American tourist—according to Miss Allen—is leading us away from the old Grand Hotel conception. Although there is a large and growing number of sophisticated and cosmopolite Americans, the great majority of visitors from the US are small- town tourists making, the Grand Trip of a life- time; and statistics show that 80 per cent. of them are between forty and sixty. They want to see the sights and observe the quaint local customs in the day-time; 'but at night they want to feel at home. So the newest hotels--like the Westbury, off Bond Street—are designed for that purpose; they are being built with tow ceilings, smaller rooms and modest decor.

Condemnation of English hotel plumbing is, as you would expect, fairly universal. But what I did not know was that the British bath is one of the chief objects of criticism--for the surprising reason that it is so often round-bottomed. Americans, accustomed to a flat-bottomed bath, complain that the round-bottomed variety is diffi- cult, and sometimes dangerous, to stand up in. They would prefer showers. And they would also like to have, as automatic accessories, a large piece of soap, face tissues and a face flannel.

Other frequent criticisms in the questionnaires which tourists are asked to fill in when they leave Britain concern (inevitably) unheated bedrooms; early-morning domestic clatter and chatter in the corridors; hard pillows; and double beds: 'only honeymoon couples expect double beds,' Miss Allen insisted: 'most of our tourists prefer twin divans, convertible to double.'

And then Miss Allen Went off to prepare for a visit to Denmark, where she has been asked to sample a Copenhagen restaurant's shrimp sand- wich. It is deserving, she has been told, of a men- tion in one of her brochures. The price of the sandwich is approximately seven shillings. The price of the air ticket is approximately thirty pounds. Heigh, ho. . . .

* * *

I thought I had done with the subject of Christmas, but somebody has reminded me of another point : why were so many bakers unable or unwilling to bake bread on any of the days between the Saturday before and the Thursday after Christmas Day? Here, I would have thought, %vas a fine opportunity for the small bakeries to show how much better bread they can bake, and how much better service they can give, than the combines. Yet could I find a loaf of fresh bread on Christmas Eve? I could not. The bakeries were open—but only to sell cakes and a few stale loaves left over from the previous week. I have every sympathy with the craft bakers in their struggle against mass-production, but it seems to me they missed a trick here.

Why, I wonder?

I shall be writing to thank individually the various people who have sent in ideas for a con- sumers' column : let me here thank you collec- tively! As far as possible 1 would like to try out the ideas first; so it may take a little time before they start appearing here. It is obviously not going to be possible to test them all thoroughly—as 1 said last- week, I do not propose to set myself up as a judge of commodities, as many other people are engaged in that pursuit already. But unkind experience has taught me that individual recommendations are not always to be relied upon. This is not simply because they may be biased; the passage of time renders them obsolete. How often do we find that that delightful new guest house, so comfortable, so cheap, so well run in its first year or two, deteriorates when the new owners begin to lose interest or begin to feel the need to make more money! And the same applies to many of the concerns producing home- made, or crypto-homemade, goods. Some kind of a check is necessary, and that takes time. But I am very glad to get the suggestions, some of which look most promising.

For example, there is one from the headmaster of a Northern school, extolling the virtues of 'as down to earth a dish, almost, as your fish and chips: location, Melton Mowbray.' It is possible, he went on, to buy a Melton pie of such exquisite quality that he would not hesitate to serve it as the main dish at a summer dinner party—indeed, he has done so.

am not referring,' he goes on, 'to the com- monly marketed article calling itself a Melton pie —the sort that has a soggy look and a dull grey filling of the Lord knows what. No : this chap has a gentle golden pastry, a proud shape, and a filling to which my poor pen cannot begin to do justice. It can be bought only at . . .' At this point I propose to stop—until the product has been sampled. But thank you, Sir, for letting me know of its existence. I know exactly what you mean by the spurious Meltons. of which there arc a great many knocking around, their interiors as grey-green greasy as the River Limpopo when that river was first visited by the elephant's child.

* * • If you are coming up to London in the hope of buying new and well-designed furniture, fabrics, or home equipment of any kind, I suggest you go straight to the Council of Industrial Design's Centre in the Haymarket. It is a wonder- ful time-saver, and will spare you many hours of fruitless, weary trailing from store to store. The selection, which changes periodically, may include anything from a bicycle pump to a new bathroom curtain fabric; but whatever is there has been selected as an example of good British craftsman- ship, by a committee including such experts as Sir Gordon Russell and Mr. Misha Black. And when you see something you like, they have only to look it up on their card-index system to tell you all about the product, who makes it, and where it can be bought.

But I hope one of these days to describe what the Centre has on show in more detail.