For once I’m tending more towards conspiracy rather than cock-up. Mostly I view conspiracy theorists as the anoraks of the secularised world — seeking for shadowy, omnipotent forces to revere in a postlapsarian world of disturbing chaos. But the recent debacle in Forest Gate, whereby 200 armed, chemically suited policemen stormed a house and maimed an innocent man — who just happened to be a Muslim — have got me thinking.   More...

At 42 the Calls – a proto-boutique hotel in Leeds, which I’ve been frequenting for a decade or more on book tours – I am upgraded to a suite. And what a suite! This is no aircraft hangar, like the suite-with-gymnasium at the Hotel de Vin in Brum, but a charming collection of rooms: bedroom, bathroom, sitting room, tastefully rendered in white plaster and featuring low, rough-hewn wooden beams. However, the sitting room is dominated by an oval black table, complete with six high-backed chairs, and a wide-screen interactive television. It’s as if Anne Hathaway’s cottage had been impregnated by the Starship Enterprise and produced bastard offspring, all interior and no surface.   More...

Every hotel room with a sufficiently big mirror reduces a man to the level of Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now. The urge to order up scotch, do nude kung-fu and smash the mirror is almost insurmountable. It takes iron self-control to watch News 24 and then attempt sleep. At the Hotel de Vin in Birmingham all the suites are named after famous vintages and there’s even a vinous tinge to the wall coverings and the furniture. Last time I stayed here, I arrived at about midnight, and the old geezer on the desk said: ‘We have upgraded you, Mr Self, to the Ruinart Suite.’ ‘Oh, that’s awfully nice of you,’ I replied. ‘Yes,’ he leant forward conspiratorially ‘it has a gym.’ And it did: three Tunturi machines, a wet room, a power shower. The bed itself was about ten foot square, and would’ve happily accommodated an Eastern European volleyball team, pumped up on steroids and ready for anything. The trouble was, I was utterly exhausted. Nevertheless, I bent to the will of Barton Fink, the God of hotel chains, and exercised all night long.   More...