Hotel Saint Simeon

St Simeon's is a field station run by aliens to study earthlings. They are friendly aliens but they don't understand earth culture which is why they set up this research facility. The only information they had to go on was a video of Fawlty Towers and a lonley planet guide to Lithuania. Things that give this away: they serve strawberry juice for breakfast. Or raspberry juice. No orange or grapefruit. They let the guests use the kitchen! There is a selection of breads - they select it for you. The curtains had no curtain hooks. There was no glass for tooth brushing (do aliens have teeth?). They have mastered coffee (they have that on planet zog). The bed was clean and comfortable. The location is great and it is very quiet. The aliens speak with eastern European accents to disguise their true origins. The wifi connection was free and fast.

Oh my God!

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry - this group of buffoons should not have a hotel to run.

The price was excellent. Like for a rusty, second-hand Ford Mondeo.

The location could not be better - right by the museums. That's what my kids wanted - the Science Museum especially.

Anyway, I digress.

Room: we had a room for 4, so we expected to be a bit squashed. I loved the room door - very studenty. The bed linen was washed by someone who needs to learn how to operate a washing machine. I mean, was it too much powder or too little, or just poor quality? Whatever it was, they were greyish. Yuk. The carpet was sticky ... double-yuk. Amazingly, we had our own fridge in the room - vital for us because we had some very expensive medicine we needed to keep cool. Less amazingly, it didn't work.

The upshot of this was I got to know the owner a little and the kitchen more than I really wanted to. The owner was a charming old Serb who thought I was wrong about the fridge not working, but didn't see fit to prove me wrong. He promised to change my fridge, but one of his workers told me not to expect anything, as he's very forgetful. So, I stored the medicine in the kitchen fridge (there was a common fridge in the "breakfast" room). A bit of a GBP 3,000 risk, but I had no choice. The fridge was clean and the food was separated properly. The rest of the kitchen was splattered in bacon fat.

Morning came - we felt good - quality mattresses. Truly. I noticed another mattress stored above the toilet annex. Bizarre. There was also various detritus scattered around the hotel - old furniture and broken office chairs on display.

Breakfast - at this point I feel like the Commissioner in the Clouseau films, you know, giggling insanely.

Dingey breakfast room, people crammed in. Bacon fat smoke smarting your eyes. Poor quality bacon - the cheapest stuff. Matched the baked beans. Service given by a char lady wearing the dirtiest apron possible. Ahh - the tea. OMG, I just loved that great big pot she poured from. Shame it dripped so much over every single table!! Toast. It was astonishing how they burnt every single slice - you can't fault them for thoroughness! Jam - no choice of single servings in plastic or the alternative of quality produce you sometimes get. Here it was cost-cutting par excellence.

I fell into conversation with a middle-aged French couple sat cheek by jowl with me. Restaurant owners!! I could have cried. My wife did (because of the smoke).

One good thing is that you have access to the kitchen daytime - so you can have tea and sandwiches ... and make yourself some unburnt toast as well. As for parking - I saved a fortune by ditching the car on Putney Heath (after dropping off the family) and taking the Underground.

To sum up - you can survive sleeping in this place, but please get breakfast somewhere else.