Libel

The case of the flea

London has acquired the dubious reputation as the libel capital of the world. The Guide is relatively safe from its sharp claws because we select only good hotels leaving the dross to anonymous travellers' tales. The law of libel, however, is so weighted in favour of claimants, that even we have to be careful.

Hotels can and do sue. Shortly after a Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool many years ago, Sir Edward du Cann, then a key figure in the party, told me that he had been bitten 34 times on his right buttock while peacefully asleep in his bed at the most expensive and celebrated hotel in the city. Denis Thatcher, also, so he claimed, had been attacked by the same beast. As I was then the political editor of The Observer, this was too good a piece of gossip to waste. Regretting only that that the Iron Lady herself appeared to have escaped unscathed, I fed the news of the flea that had ravaged the Tory conference to the Observer's Pendennis column.

A week later a missive arrived from the Imperial Hotel in Blackpool saying that the whole establishment had had to be fumigated, and demanding an abject apology and substantial damages. The writ threw the Observer's management into a state of gloom. They made clear that, as the guilty party, I was responsible for getting them out of this hole. And very expensive it was, not helped by the fact that Denis Thatcher on mature reflection decided he had been bitten, not by a flea but by a sea midge, The moral of this story is that if you want to go to the Jewel of the North be very careful where you park your right buttock. We have four selected hotels in the city, all of which can be guaranteed to give you a peaceful night. For those who have an appetite for more and better particulars of this grisly story, you can read it in my book Grotesque Libels, published by Corgi. It was published originally by W.H. Allen under the tile: 'My Learned Friends.'

Adam Raphael

Special offers

Christmas

Christmas is almost here and our selected good hotels are bursting with ideas. How about a pair of tickets for a carol concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London which the Draycott is throwing in with the offer of a deluxe double room for £379 per night. At Wilton Court, Ross-on-Wye, you get the full works including a champagne reception, a Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas lunch, buffet supper followed by a Boxing Day dinner for £465. At the White Swan in Pickering, at which I have just happily stayed, there is a three-day Christmas package and a two-day New Year package for £585 and £325 respectively. So if you are foot-loose and fancy-free over the holiday season, forget your waist-line and indulge yourself. You can always begin the New Year with a resolution about going for healthy walks.

Hotels, inns and B&Bs with special offers (click and see)

New website

Step by step

The GHG website (www.goodhotelguide.com) is very much work in progress. A lot is going on behind the scenes to make the site easier to use and to attract more visitors. One idea which we are actively exploring are user reviews. Unlike TripAdvisor, the reviews will be moderated to filter out the collusive, the malicious and the unfair. We will also label each review so that users will know who has written them. Do they come from new, regular, or trusted readers, or perhaps even inspectors?. That is the same classification system we use when we write the print edition each summer. We don't ignore reports from new readers we have not heard from before, but we place much more weight on reports that are sent by us by those whose judgements and opinions have proved reliable over many years. We particularly value reports from hoteliers because they know just how difficult the job of pleasing guests can be.

Hotel Tales

Basil Fawlty

'We spend a lot of time, making sure we have plenty of choice at breakfast and lots of fresh fruit, including buying boxes of fresh yellow & pink grapefruit segmented daily by one of our staff and served on the breakfast table.  One morning, our Polish head waiter, Tomasz, who has been here for four years, came into the kitchen and said he didn't understand what a lady was saying. I duly went to see her on this her first morning at the hotel. I was met by a stout lady who said plaintively: "I have to have grapefruit for breakfast". My reply: "We have fresh grapefruit just here" was greeted by a wail: ."I can't eat that, its far too bitter, I want proper hotel grapefruit." The penny finally dropped, "Do you mean tinned grapefruit?", " Yes, proper grapefruit in syrup!" Tomasz was immediately dispatched to Brenda's Stores a few minutes walk away and returned with their entire stock of five tins of Epicure Grapefruit Segments. This lady then chomped triumphantly through all of them during her stay. Guess what? She is returning next May!' My thanks to Zoe Holmes, of the Bay Hotel, Coverack, Cornwall, for this tale. The moral is that to be a hotelier, you need the diplomacy and patience of a saint.

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It's not too late...

The 2010 edition of the Good Hotel Guide to Great Britain and Ireland makes a perfect Christmas present. Completely revised and rewritten, the new edition has 450 full entries, and more than 400 shortlist entries. There are more than 100 new entries and a similar number has been dropped. Discount vouchers worth a total of £150 are included with each copy. They enable a 25% saving off the normal B&B price at participating hotels. A copy of the new Guide ordered direct from us costs £17.50 (including £2.50 p&p), compared to a retail price of £20.

Click here to buy now!

The Good Hotel Guide, founded 32 years ago, is totally independent. It receives no payments, no hospitality and no advertising from hotels selected for an entry in the printed edition. Hotels pay to be on the GHG website, but only those hotels which have an entry in the printed Guide are invited to appear on the website. Some of our selected hotels also buy copies of the printed Guide from us. Selected hotels are recommended by readers, backed where necessary by an anonymous inspection. The British edition of the Guide is published each autumn. Adam and Caroline Raphael, who edit the Guide, are award-winning journalists. Caroline, a former BBC researcher and a travel writer, is editor-in-chief. She has worked on the Guide for more than 30 years. Adam, who previously worked for the Guardian, the Observer, the BBC and the Economist, is the Guide's marketing director. Desmond Balmer, formerly travel editor of the Observer, is editor of the British guide. The Guide specialises in small owner-managed hotels, inns and B&Bs in England, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands and Ireland. It includes budget B&Bs, good value hotels as well as grand country houses and chic city hotels, all offering value for money in their price.range.