Muzak

Let there be silence

One man’s Mozart is another man’s poison. Music divides. So why do hotels insist on inflicting their musical tastes on their guests? ‘Music at dinner is an insult to both the cook and the musician,’ noted G.K. Chesterton. Or in Gordon Ramsay’s blunter version: ‘If you walk into a restaurant and music is being played, you know the food is crap.’ So what is wrong with silence?

The Guide makes a point of asking hotels what their policy is on background music. They often reply proudly that they have installed the latest Bang and Olufsen hi-fi system which they play to their guests, morning, noon, and night. One hotelier told us:‘I am tone deaf. I have six CDs which I play in rotation, as they will probably like at least one of them.’ There may, I accept with reluctance, be a case for a little light music to ease the chill of a totally empty dining room. But too many hoteliers use background music as an all-purpose battering ram. One visitor to a designer hotel in Glasgow complained of ‘wall to wall music with the kind of low beat that rattles your fillings at breakfast'.

I know just what he means. At a Relais and Chateau hotel on Little Palm Island, just off the Florida Keys, my mid-morning coffee was going splendidly until interrupted by some raucous modern jazz. As I was alone in the restaurant, I asked the waitress for it to be turned off so I could listen instead to bird song and the waves. ‘Sure’, she said. Five minutes later the music was still blaring out, I asked again. ‘Sure, no problem’, again without any result. That prompted direct action. I went to the console and ripped out every wire I could see. Bliss, birds and the sound of waves were back..

Vandalism? Ironically by far the most effective deterrent against yobbery is piped classical music which teenagers en masse can't stand. Pipedown, an admirable pressure group which campaigns for silence, has no yobs but many distinguished musicians amongst its members, including Alfred Brendel, Lesley Garrett and Julian Lloyd Webber. The Guide is pleased to be one of its supporters. We all have our prejudices and Muzak is mine.

Adam Raphael

Special offers

New Year

This is a time to blow the winter blues away with plans for a special break. Our selected hotels have a variety of enticing offers. Fancy a complimentary round of golf, a one-hour spa treatment or a beach horse ride? Then take yourself off to Carrig House, a former hunting lodge in a superb lakeside setting in Co. Kerry which reopens at the beginning of March. It is offering three nights for two for 229 Euros per person. Access is via Kerry, Cork, or Shannon airports. Swinton Park, a 17th-century castle in spectacular grounds, near Masham, is offering 20% off all its room rates until April 2nd, excluding Valentine's weekend. At Combe House, near Gittisham, ideally placed for a west country jaunt, two nights dnner bed and breakfast is from just £250 per night. There is also a welcoming glass of champagne to help you celebrate. Lastly, for a delightfully eccentric mid-week stay, Frogg Manor at Broxton is offering 50% off its room rate for those who dine in. You won't get frog legs on the menu, but there are 300 of all kinds of frogs in straw, ceramic, and brass dotted around the hotel.The host also oftens wears a frog outfit. Dotty, but wonderfully warm.

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

New design

Step by step

The Good Hotel Guide's print edition is getting its most radical face-lift in 30 years. The 2011 edition, which will be published this October, will have a new type-face, a new design, a new cover and full colour images. The reason for this costly make-over is that we believe it is essential to sustain the sales of the Guide. Iinvestment in the print edition is worthwhile as It is the key to our cherished independence. Hotels do not pay for their entries and can only get into the Guide on their merits after they have been recommended by readers backed up by professional inspection. And only those hotels which have an entry in the printed Guide are entitled to have an entry on the GHG website (www.goodhotelguide.com). Selling travel guides in the era of the Internet with its free content culture is difficult, but thousands of our readers would be lost without their copy. A computer cannot be shoved in the glove compartment of a car, cannot easily be read in bed, or pored over on the breakfast table. The print edition of the Guide also contains more hotels than appear on the website, and it also has £150 worth of vouchers which allow travellers a discount of 25% off the B&B rate of participating hotels. For these and many other reasons, we don't believe the Jeremiahs who say there is no future in print.

Hotel Tales

Basil Fawlty

1. 'The high point of our stay came the next morning around 7 am, when a maid entered our room and began to vacuum around our beds. We protested sleepily and tried to persuade her to leave. But it turned out that she did not speak or understand English. We phoned the reception, who sent a Spanish speaker who told the maid to go. By then we were so awake that we got up and left shortly afterwards.'

2. 'When we got to our room, there was no bath. When we complained, telling reception that we had booked a room with a bath, they told us that we had one but it was just across the corridor. When we said that we did not want to walk across the corridor in our pyjamas, they told us that there were bathrobes in our room. That led to a request for another room but they said that the hotel was full and nothing was available.'

3. 'Breakfast was the worst we have ever experienced. There were no staff in the restaurant when we arrived. We helped ourselves to juice, and found a table. Eventually someone appeared to take our tea/coffee order, and we were directed to the buffet. This, on a dirty table, consisted of a few cereals, some fruit and some bottles of fruit yogurt. I asked for plain yogurt and was told by the waiter that he didn’t think there was any. I asked him to go to the kitchen and ask: he returned with a bottle. There were no cold meats and cheeses, though they were listed on the menu. I was told by the waiter that they didn’t have them. I lost the will to live.'

BUY tHE gUIDE

It's never too late...

The 2010 edition of the Good Hotel Guide to Great Britain and Ireland makes a perfect New Year's 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.

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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.