Just a few things that struck me today.

I had an interesting encounter with a very nice young man in our new hotel this morning (Taipei if you're interested) who insisted on wanting to take my suitcase upstairs. Very nice of him, but I wanted to take it up myself so I could get unpacked and start to relax before our afternoon engagements, and I hate that period of 10 minutes when you're in the room but you can't do anything as you're waiting for the case. The poor guy didn't know what to do - should he do as the customer wanted and thereby forgo his duties of not allowing the guest to carry anything, or should he insist on carrying it and thereby annoy the guest? I felt sorry for him. After 5 minutes or so (about half the time it would have taken him to bring it upstairs) he let go. Customer service can, I suppose, sometimes be TOO good!

Then I was struck (as I often am) by the stupidity of the notice "in case of fire do not use elevator." Read literally of course, we should never EVER use the lifts, just IN CASE there is a fire. Clearly they have missed out a "the" before the word "case," or better still they should write "in THE EVENT of fire do not use elevator." I know, I know, I'm a sad sad case, but it is a silly sign.

Once I my room, I read (as countless times before) the note which the hotel thoughtfully puts out asking guests to think about the amount of detergent used every day in washing towels and sheets, and that guests should perhaps help to save the environment by re-using towels. The cynic in me came out: are they really concerned about the environment, or their washing costs?

The real question, I suppose, is "why does it matter?" If it does help the environment, and their budget, the motivation is perhaps irrelevant.

What a long post you can get out of seemingly irrelevant things. I must be going mad.