Hotel Babylon

Babylon Confessions #1

by Imogen Edwards-Jones

'Something strange occurs to guests as soon as they check in. Even if in real life they are perfectly well-mannered, decent people with proper balanced relationships, as soon as they spin through the revolving hotel doors the normal rules of behaviour no longer seem to apply.'All of the following is true.Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty. All the anecdotes, the stories, the characters, the situations, the highs, the lows, the scams, the drugs, the misery, the love, the death and the insanity are exactly as was told by Anonymous - someone who has spent his whole career working in hotels at the heart of London's luxury hotel industry. However, for legal reasons, the stories now take place in a fictitious hotel known as Hotel Babylon. More than a decade is compressed into a day. Everything else is as it should be. The rich spend money, the hotel makes money and the chambermaids still fight the bellboys over a two-pound coin.It's just another twenty-four hours in an expensive London hotel.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Memoir, Humor, Biography, Adult, Contemporary

356 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 5, 2004

Reviews

[zed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining and easy to read. A bunch of true hotel tales written up as a "day in the life" of one of the front desk employees. I read a few of the kitchen incidents to my wife, and she recalled similar occurrences from her youthful days in the industry. Was a lamb really slaughtered in a high class London Hotel luxury suite? Golly!


I think I could do something similar for property management if I could be bothered. I see there are a few in the series, but one is enough for me.

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can see why somebody might give this book one star if they were reading it and hoping to find War and Peace, but let's call a spade a spade (and rate it as one): this is a fast, fun read, a page-turner full of nothing but lurid, juicy hotel gossip. If you take it for that, and are the type of person who, every once in a while enjoys indulging in knowing other peoples' silly doings, then this is one heck of a good book. It's pretty amazing what hotel staff have to smile and put up with, and what we're willing to do simply because we are paying for a room. I'd recommend this as a light summer read, or a good book for someone too busy with a small child to read anything of true substance. :)

[Arnis · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://poseidons99.wordpress.com/201...

[Sterlingcindysu · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 rounded down. This isn't a "how horrible the mean tricks hotel workers do to the poor tourist" book, or what to watch out for or how to score upgrades. It's an hour by hour description of how a front desk clerk at a four star London hotel spends 24 hours (the night clerk called in sick) doing his job.

Obviously there are short tempered people checking in (count me as one of those on the red eyes), drunks, bums trying to get a warm place to spend the night and those checking out hoping to erase some of the room charges.

There is one tip on how to score upgrades--stay there a lot, or if the hotel is overbooked they upgrade you to a better room (or shuffle you off somewhere else).

I travel quite a bit (on vacation and husband's business trips) and one thing I've been noticing is that rooms aren't cleaned daily anymore. At some places they'll give you hotel points if you don't want housekeeping. Over a decade ago they stopped washing sheets and towels everyday. I think the best housekeeping service is on a cruise--room always made up, towels folded into cute animals and ice always available.

And I know they overbook rooms

[Elizabeth Reuter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I enjoyed reading Hotel Babylon more than I've enjoyed reading most anything else so far this year.

Babylon is a bunch of true stories hotel manager Anonymous told Imogen Edwards-Jones, and that she arranged into a narrative. It's structured over one full day from her source's point of view, as he's forced to do 24 hours on the clock with the help of caffiene pills.

I was worried when I picked this up that it would be all horrible stories about people treating each other like crap. It's not. It IS about people losing their inhibitions, and there are some vile bits and characters thanks to that. There's also a lot of sympathetic, funny chapters about kind and/or eccentric guests, and some truly touching moments between staff members.

And all these stories are interesting. I was with our anonymous narrator all the way, whether he was dealing with rowdy drunks or talking to bored, naked insomniacs at 4 a.m. I was, in a word, entertained.

If nothing else, this book can remind you that people, and life, aren't always boring. Babylon is a fun read.

-Elizabeth Reuter
Author, The Demon of Renaissance Drive

[Jennifer Mangler · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know many people enjoyed the stories told in this book, but they just made me angry. I'm supposed to find all these "whacky" stories funny? I don't. They actually disgust me. I can't understand how anybody finds this crap amusing. Entitled people being gross and demanding is not hilarious. It's depressing.

[Filip · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the 'Hotel Babylon' series and I enjoyed the book as well. It repeats some information way too often and I get it that all the events are condensed into a single long day, but I still had a lot of fun reading it. From the various ways hotels try to earn on their clients to the ways clients can cause hotels grief, it was all quite interesting and amusing. Same about the hierarchy in the hotel itself, the relations between various employees and so on. If I get a chance, I'll be checking the author's books on other topics.

[Ver · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a really good insight into luxury hotels. The things that go down at night are particularly interesting. I also liked the bits about some famous people who stayed in such hotels. Sometimes there was too much too much repetition on the same topics, however, the whole thing was pretty entertaining.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've already read one of this series of books and so knew the format going in - unnamed source(s) in the industry tell tales from behind the scenes, which are then written into a day in the life of - although I didn't enjoy this as much as Hospital Babylon . This is partly due to the format which means it seems less like reporting and more like bad fiction, and is also partly due to my never having worked in a hotel. But mostly it's due to the fact that in the hotel trade there don't seem to be any moments of quiet sweetness in amongst all the bad behaviour; the people that can afford to stay in top hotels seem to just behave badly knowing that, whatever their transgression, flashing a few notes will see you not only let off the hook but fawned over like you shit sunbeams.

There are enough scandalous tidbits to keep most gossips satisfied - whether it be the fools paying £800 a shot for whiskey (I don't care how rich you are, you're a twat if you think any drink is worth that), the proper-looking ladies leaving shits in their beds, the businessmen asking reception to nosh them off, the requirement that you tip anyone who so much as makes eye-contact with you in order to be treated well, or the celebrities allowed to dangle people out of windows as their security is bigger than yours - but, along with all the confessions of just how much hotels fleece anyone who walks through their doors (especially if you're one of the back-of-house staff), if you're anything like me most of them will just leave you feeling annoyed and more certain than ever that you'd rather doss down in the back of your Transporter than give any of these wankers your money.

**Also posted at Randomly Reading and Ranting**

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh My God.. How I loved this epic tale. It's just so amazing how a hoteliers life is compressed to a double shift without missing anything out. A decade in various departments of different luxury hotels gave me the opportunity to experience 98% of this book first hand. When I read Hotel Babylon, it really brought back so many memories and a lot I'm experiencing as we speak.

I don't know whether everyone will 'get it' but it has to be read by everyone cos each and every one of us will at least spend one day in a hotel doesn't matter the star rating or where in the world it is. It's worth knowing what's going on when you close your eyes or enjoying a meal or being a bitch to the waiting staff or the receptionist; don't get me wrong.

It's hilarious, it's very real and it's enjoyable. Absolutely insightful and brilliant. and Some things maybe hard to believe but hey, they all are included in the package. It's totally worth the read.

"Long time ago people who sacrificed their sleep, family, food, laughter and other joys of life were called SAINTS. Now, they are called HOTELIERS!!!"

[Marco · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading (and thoroughly enjoying) Air Babylon, I was happy to find out the author had used the same concept in a whole series of books. Before I was able to get my hands on Hotel Babylon, I discovered the TV series inspired by it and subsequently got hooked up. Now I´ve read it, I can tell the TV series are a vivid reflection of the book (hardly a surprise when you know Imogen Edwards-Jones was hired as a consultant), though going more in-depht into both the various hotel-related anecdotes and the characters. This came handy as the book doesn´t really focus on the characters but rather on the special situations and the general information on how a 5-star hotel is run. So having watched the tv series is definitely a plus here, as you´re already familiar with most of the characters.

All in all I found the book really entertaining, though perhaps a bit less than Air Babylon, but then again it´s because I´ve rarely set foot in a luxury hotel, while I´m much more familiar with airports (and interested in what goes on there behind the scenes).

[Katy Jean Vance · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow. That was interesting. And terrible. And funny. I dunno... this is what happens when you travel without a backup book and have to borrow from a friend. Sheesh.

[Marta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brīžiem ļoti komisks vienas nakts viesnīcā portretējums, bet no otras var arī uzzināt daudz jaunu viesnīcu lietu.

[Tena Edlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I was reading this book, I thought it was to the hotel industry as Kitchen Confidential was to the restaurant industry. Then, about halfway through, I saw one of the reviews on the cover that had said the same thing. That part was somewhat entertaining... seeing what all goes on behind the scenes to make a hotel work. It also helped me understand why Heather Wiges Blakely and I got upgraded to a "sweet suite" when we arrived late at night to our prereserved hotel the night before the Hawkeyes played at Soldier Field in Chicago. They were overbooked, so we got the room that was left... lucky us!!

What I didn't like about this book was the name dropping. I don't need to know which specific celebrities did which outrageous things. That part felt icky. I think if this book had been marketed as fiction based on some fact instead of fact with a little fiction, I would have liked it more. Knowing these things COULD happen vs. knowing they DID happen might have made me feel better about society at large.

[Katrina Gilles · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an easy, quick guilty pleasure read. Not too much for a plot line, just 24 hours of reception duty at a posh hotel. I'm not sure how much of it is really accurate, but it had all the crazy things you could think of for the extremely wealthy.

I had watched the TV show a few years ago and I think it had the same feel. I remember being amused by the show, and if you like one, you'd enjoy the other.

[Ieva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kaut kas it kā iz dzīves un daudz par viesnīcu darbinieku likstām un klientiem tai skaitā dīvaiņiem un īpašajiem viesiem. Brīžiem bija tīri uzjautrinoši lasīt. Kādiem kas ir strādājuši viesnīcā varētu būt mazliet vairāk materiāla ar ko papildināt aprakstīto no savas pieredzes. Viegla lasāmviela ar nelielu devu humora. Ir ok.

[Robert Day · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charming book. Empathised with the narrator. Understood his feelings. Completely agreed with the authors version of how a hotel is and should be run. No shocks really; just life.

[Gulnar Aydamirova · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars for its genre. Enjoyed it as a vacation read - a glimpse into the day in the life of a luxury hotel in London - I think I will pay more attention to some details during my next hotel stay…

[Colleen Darney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun, entertaining, easy, and fast read!.

[Kristi · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a pretty typical behind-the-scenes book about the service industry, with all the usual drunkenness and naked people one would expect. Doesn't break much new ground, but it's a fun distraction if you like these kinds of slice of life stories.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable reading although nothing in it surprised me it was entertaining and fun

[Louise Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as restaurant Babylon, but still an entertaining read.

[Mira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting to learn the behind-the-scenes of a big London palace

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.8 - Un poco repetitivo a veces

[Eva Pormeistere IG lapaspusempapedam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imodžena Edvardsa-Džounsa ir žurnāliste,kura mīl viesoties dažādās pasaules viesnīcās un vēl vairāk mīl pastāstīt mums,kas tad īsti notiek tajās,apkopojot šo visu informāciju stāsta veidā grāmatā.

Grāmata sevī ietver uz patiesiem notikumiem balstītu stāstu, kas atspoguļo kādas 5 zvaigžņu viesnīcas darbinieka 10 gadu pieredzē piedzīvotos notikumus,kas parāda,kas patiesībā slēpjas aiz viesnīcu darbinieku skaistajiem smaidiem mūs sagaidot,kā arī cik pārsteigumiem un noslēpumiem pilns var būt ikviens viesnīcas klients, kurš sper savu kāju pāri tās durvju slieksnim.
Lai nebūtu iespējams atklāt, kas šī ir par viesnīcu, tai tiek piešķirts izdomāts nosaukums "Viesnīca Babylon". Kā arī, lai nebūtu kādam no lasītājiem atšifrējams konkrētais laika periods, darbinieka 10 gados piedzīvotie interesantākie notikumi tiek atainoti vienas 24 h darba dienas ietvaros.

Sekss, vara, šmaukšanās - tas viss un vēl vairāk atrodams grāmatā! Un ko var zināt - varbūt kāds no stāsta varoņiem un piedzīvojumiem liks tev ataust atmiņā sen dzirdētu stāstu no savu draugu, paziņu, kolēģu viesošanās kādā no 5 zvaigžņu viesnīcām un atklāsi, kurš patiesībā slēpjas aiz kāda no šīs grāmatas varoņiem - nekad neko nevar zināt!

Reiz studiju gados, strādājot apkalpojošā sfērā (bērnu apģērbu veikaliņā), vienmēr domāju, cik aplausu vērts ir tas smaids, kas sagaida ik katru klientu, jo aiz tā paslēpušies ne tikai kuriozu pilni notikumi, bet arī aizvainojums, sāpīgi mirkļi, kāda klienta sliktā garstāvokļa izmešana uz pārdevēju, bosa "Man vajag, man vajag" mūžīgi neremdināmās alkas pašam neko neieguldot darbiniekā, un vēl, un vēl, un vēl... Un ah, kas tik nav piedzīvots - ja ne grāmatas, tad vismaz bloga cienīgi patiesi stāsti noteikti!
Šī faktora dēļ bija jau diezgan paredzami, ko tieši uz savas ādas ir izbaudījuši un vēl izbaudīs lappusi pēc lappuses grāmatas varoņi.

Viegla lasāmviela, kas ļaus tev gan smieties, gan ieplest acis aiz šoka un sev jautāt "Kā tā var rīkoties?", un noteikti tāpat kā man liks aizdomāties - kādi tad mēs paši esam viesnīcu klienti un ko par mums domā to darbinieki ?

[Canette Arille · Rating 5 out of 5]

ha ha ha ! :-D . I laughing when I see the next book of this series :-D . Its so funny :- D . I have a tears in eyes with laughing. All these books are funny and belly hurt me with laughing. I dont treat this book seriously, to worry about my taste in reading. Its good to laugh. Positive vibes :-D

[Alisa Kester · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to say the BBC television series is better than this book, which it's based on. They lifted all the few good parts of the book virtually intact and turned them into the main tv character's monologues, so I guess I felt there wasn't any need to for me to have read the book at all. I hoped, like with most tv adaptations of written works, that the book would be better and I'd find out loads more information about the hotel business, but there honestly wasn't much there.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick and easy, mindlessly entertaining read about crazy happenings in a five star hotel. Not a laugh out loud funny book, but clever and well written. Good airplane or beach reading.

The book is great for a little bit of insight into the behind the scenes things hotel workers encounter. As someone who works in the hospitality industry, some of the stories were pretty reminiscent of things I've seen and heard myself.

PS: Be nice and tip housekeeping!

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unnamed worker in the hotel industry reveals all to the author who then weaves all the unrelated tales into the story of one night. The narrative is excellent and flows effortlessly and seamlessly. A bit of an eye opener all round. Will be interested in reading the other books in the Babylon series

[Pamela Su · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amusing and somewhat horrifying account of the day in the life of a front-desk hotel employee.

One hotel manager's entire career has been condensed into an action-packed double-shift day. It's quite an eye-opening account of working in a hotel. Sometimes hilarious, sometimes appalling and occasionally touching and sweet.

An entertaining read.