Our stand is near one of the doors which leads to one of the entrances and next to one of the outdoor cafés.

As such and because of bad signage, we are more like an information point – for the toilets, in the main.

It was the first thing that M explained and that question is asked more than most, closely followed by “Do you have any gadgets?”. To which, the answer is ‘no’, since we don’t. But you can see by the slight hesitation before the walk away (and the distrustful look in their eyes – or is that just my imagination?) that they don’t believe that. They obviously think that, stashed away, behind the ‘counter’ we have sack-loads of things that we are choosing not to give them – but only them. One kid even came to the side, to check if we were telling the truth!

However, the best was a girl, quite beautiful, French probably, slim, tall, long hair that fell beyond her shoulders –

“Excuse me, can you tell me where the entrance to the show is?”
“Which entrance?”, I ask.
“The one to the show. Only I have to meet someone”.

Interestingly, one would have thought that she had to arrive through an ‘entrance’, or was she beamed in, like in Star Trek?

We get the ‘map’ out.

“There are many entrances, we need to know which one”, I explain, pointing to the map.

It dawns on her that, of course, this is true.

“There is a stall with a juice machine that makes juice from fresh fruit”, she says, helpfully.

Hmm. Our sign, above the stand does not say “INFORMATION – WE KNOW THE ANSWER TO ANY QUESTION YOU MAY HAVE”

“My friend doesn’t have a mobile phone”, she adds, not being helpful at all.

I want to reply “Sorry but what idiot comes to a very large show to meet someone, in 2009, without a mobile phone? In fact, who doesn’t have a mobile phone these days, unless they come from Mars?”

Instead, I ask, “How is your friend getting here – by car or taxi?”

“By bus” she replies, brightening a little.
“Here is the symbol for the bus stops”, I say. M finds the stop on the map. I suggest which way to get there.

She leaves, happily.

I hope she met her friend. I hope she convinces her friend to get a bloody mobile phone!

[From Friday, 19th June]

I arrive at the hotel late in the afternoon. The receptionist is most helpful and I get a smoking room on the sixth floor. Of course, these days, they are not keys but cards. I get the lift to the floor. A range of room numbers is given on a sign near the lift. The top range is not for me. The bottom range is. I go right, not having read the sign properly – I assume the top range was to the left and the bottom to the right. After a few steps I realise I must be wrong and go back to look at the sign which clearly has arrows showing the top range to the right and the bottom to the left.

My room is 636. I proceed and there is a fork. This time I read the sign more carefully and the top range is mine (627 – 639). I go to where the arrow points – to the left.

I note the room numbers as I pass. They are all on the right. 627, 629, 631, 633, 635…. but no 636. Perhaps the even numbers are on the left but later, or on the right in a minute, or there is a turn in the corridor up ahead?

But, no. I am faced with a green door with no signs. I decide it must be through there.

And, like I am in some sort of strange dream or nightmare, I pass from a white-walled, pastel-coloured-carpeted, well-lit corridor into a gloomy, dark-brown, dimly-lit (almost spooky) corridor. The room doors, instead of just having the number of the room had, what was supposed to be, a painter’s palette, on which the room number was painted.

Perhaps I had gone through some portal into another time and place? I looked out of the windows on my left and saw the same ‘courtyard’ as before. Still, I figured, I was in the ‘smoking corridor’. And the room numbers continued on but, this time, with even numbers too.

I feel strange about this though. It’s as if I am Alice and have stumbled through the rabbit hole. Any minute now the White Rabbit will hurry by complaining about the time!

I find my room. But the keycard doesn’t work. Then I notice that the room next door, I have already seen – in the previous world.. This just HAS to be another hotel – a different hotel. I mean, the same building but really, a different hotel. I retrace my steps, the uneasy thought in my head – what if I can’t find the door back to the other reality, the one I left behind?

I find a door that may be the one. It is locked – what if you can only come through it one way?

There is one next to it. One I had discounted. I open that one and, like a miner returning to the outside world from the depths of the mine, the brightness explodes in front of me causing me to blink several times!

I go back to the last sign and note that, to the right are almost the same range – but the start and finish are even numbers (although this is NOT very clear).

I go to my room. My key doesn’t work. I try every way. I get a red light and not a green light. I briefly wonder if, by going into that other world, I have, by stepping through the door, invalidated my keycard. I go back to reception. Apparently, the machine the machine that provides these cards, that the girl had used, doesn’t work. The other machine does.

It is with such relief that I enter my room that I fail to notice the fact that it is tiny, badly furnished and too cold.

I hunt for an ashtray. I fail to find one.

I ring reception.

“The ashtray is in the bathroom”, she says. “In all IBIS hotels, we put the ashtray in the bathroom”

Of course you do! How stupid of me not to look?

“I know it sounds strange”, she adds “but it’s always the same in our hotels”.

Globalisation or something, I expect.