A hotel bedroom is really just, as E M Forster might have written, A Room with a Loo but people can be picky and that includes me.
David Tang in his FT column complained recently about the superfluity of scatter cushions, although they are useful for a blogger sitting up in bed to write. I had a little rant earlier this year, also in the FT;
“Reading your Fast Lane columnist writing about hotels I realise that I live on a different autobahn, shall I call it Cheap Lane. When I check into a hotel I am not besieged by the manager and bellhops crowding around my taxi. I speak to Reception and ask for the “free wi-fi” code. Those two words can mean a number of things. First, the hotel has free wi-fi but it is not working; secondly, that there is free wi-fi in the immediate vicinity of Reception but you must pay for connectivity in your room; thirdly, there is a free connection in your room but the signal is as weak as a Scotsman’s smile; fourthly, there is a splendid connection but only for one device and protected by a long password which must be entered on every log in; fifthly, there is wi-fi but it isn’t free. If this list applied to “free hot water” in a hotel, it would go out of business.”
Recent experience indicates that hotel wi-fi is improving but now I have another problem. There are seldom enough power points for charging devices and they are usually inconveniently placed, either behind a piece of furniture or half way up a wall with nowhere to put the device while it is charging. In Bologna this week I had to unplug the telephone and the TV to free up two sockets. The room had been refurbed but not the wiring.
However, on trains these days there is almost always a convenient socket. Travelling first class on the Trans-Mongolian service from Moscow to Beijing there was a socket set into the skirting board of each compartment. Second class passengers also had a socket but just one for each carriage of 30 passengers.