Tuesday evening saw me attend the grand opening of the Waldorf Hotel on
Aldwych. “But it's been there for years,” I hear you mutter under your
breath before sauntering disinterestedly out of the room. But come back!
It's been relaunched as the Waldorf HILTON after a substantial refit and, no
doubt, a substantial review of room rates. My companion and I were welcomed
into a ballroom which was glistening with gold, yes, real gold, well,
perhaps not real gold, but it had me fooled, and let me tell you, I'm no
stranger to gold. A couple of hundred people in smart evening-wear were
listening attentively to the Austrian head of Hilton UK & Ireland, who was
delivering a speech that oscillated between congratulating various other
heads of various other Hilton departments, and weak jokes. I stood there,
uncomfortably, trying not to look too conspicuous in a scruffy shirt,
t-shirt and corduroy trousers with accompanying Tamla Motown holdall. I
failed. People with clean fingernails noticed that my shoes had not been
properly shined. I rubbed them on the backs of my trousers (my shoes, not
their fingernails), as the Austrian chap droned on. “You know, when work
started on zis hotel, there were certain similarities wiz Fawlty Towers…”

[nervous laughter] “… but at least zere were no German guests to make
zings even worse!” [silence, murmuring.]

Young people from faraway lands, like Indonesia, were permitted to serve
canapes and champagne to older people from far less faraway lands, like
Berkshire. How proud they must have felt, in their smart uniforms.

Hilton had thoughtfully employed 4 tall, attractive women to stand around in
Showgirls outfits. i.e. skimpy, with gigantic blue feathers sprouting from
the shoulders. One girl's outfit was so tight that the flap-things on her
strapless bra (sorry, not familiar with the terminology) had worked their
way loose, and the other three girls, bored out of their skulls and veterans
of bitchy behaviour, were attempting to flick them without her noticing.
They tired of this quickly, and returned to standing in a line, wearing
perfect smiles while quietly exchanging barbed comments with each other.
“I'd just like to say what a marvellous job you're doing,” I said to them
after having consumed 2 Complimentary Large Chocolate Martinis. “Fanks,”
said one.

We were shown two rooms: a modern room, and a more traditional room. They
both contained a clothes dummy, upon which you could drape a swanky outfit.
These dummys had breasts, but if you preferred a male dummy, you could twist
the breasts anti-clockwise, causing them to retreat into the chest and thus
changing the sex of the dummy. Neat trick, although it would have been
embarrassing to discover this feature by accident. “Look, darling! You can
change the dummy into a man by twisting the breasts!” “Yes. Why were you
twisting the breasts?” “I… I don't really know. Darling? Darling!!”

*

There's an Italian restaurant in Battersea that has on its menu a “Pizza
Lesbica” and a “Pizza Gay”. Now, there's nothing wrong with being gay, of
course – some of my favourite pizzas are gay – but I confidently predict
that “Pizza Gay” is their worst selling pizza, and the phrase “Can I have
your Gay Pizza?” is very rarely heard. Now, if they had a Macho Pizza, that
would be more like it. Yes. I'll have EIGHTEEN of your Macho Pizzas. Thank
you.