Late this afternoon, the last in my most recent series of exams will draw to a close. I may well repair to the room pictured here to collect myself, drink a cup of tea and gaze, spaced, at the flowers.
I quite like the Four Seasons, even if it is a bit over stuffed and over stuffy. I like the bathrooms though, and that’s what really counts in a hotel.
Hotels, as we all know, are palaces of plumbing with beds stuck around them.
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Simon, I can’t believe you like the Four Seasons! It doesn’t matter how luxurious the toilets are. The exterior is unspeakable. Nothing can forgive that.
Yes the exterior is unspeakable but the cocktails are to die for…
This is the hotel that tribunals built?
Disclosure time. I only ever have been in the Four Seasons following an exam. In the unique mix of physical exhaustion and mental voidedness I have barely noticed the exterior as I went in. But now that you mentioned it Siobh, I thought it over. It is like a aircraft hanger with a thin layer of icing. Nonetheless, the tea-room style lobby offers a cocoon of padded comfort and relative quiet- vital attributes for a gentle post-exam cup of tea.
The tea is very good as well, and they’ll make you a fresh creme anglais if you ask for custard with your apple crumble. These things cannot be dismissed lightly.
I’ve never had a cocktail there. Given the level of scruffiness that I embody during exams, I’m not sure that the cocktail lounge look would be possible to pull off.
As to the tribunals- well, I do recall there was a little problem surrounding the loans the developer consortium got to build the place. Though I think the Westin Hotel, whose toilets I can also recommend to pressed travellers though the city centre, got more coverage from the famous Lancefort case.
Both watering holes are absurdly expensive, of course. But even I can manage the overpricing of a cup of tea as the cost of access to borrowed luxury.
Best of luck!