Packed
I’m a good packer. I make no bones about bragging about that. I have sought ways over the years to whittle down my travel necessities to a tidy minimum. Advances in technology have helped enormously. Sixteen years ago, if I was going abroad for any length of time, I would pack in my suitcase a small Canon printer and a fax machine. It seems extraordinary now, but back then email was in its infancy. We had no home computer. Who did? Who had a mobile phone? Barely anyone I knew. Who had a laptop before 1995? Back then, they were the preserve of the very rich or high-flying businessmen. …
The economy option
Two days ago I shared a photo of my hotel room in Berlin on Facebook. It’s a small room, about 8′ wide, with a single bed, a desk, an armchair, a sink and a cupboard. And a small welcome pack of gumi bears on the pillow.
I posted the photo asking friends to hazard a guess as to who was paying for my hotel expenses; me or the promoter of the concert. Plenty of people cracked jokes about the size of the room (and the gumi bears) but no-one actually took the plunge and guessed. Or if they did, they didn’t say so.
It isn’t the easiest call to make. Some promoters are more generous than others and in these straitened times the five-star treatment on concert trips is less likely. But I’ll come clean. I booked the room. …
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