I’ve been catching up on iPlayer with the BBC’s behind-the-scenes profile of Claridge’s, the luxury London hotel.
A scene in which the head of housekeeping inspected the guest rooms, as the maids who’d just cleaned them stood nervously by, especially appealed. “There is dust on this chair’s legs,” came the comment. Later, as she walked down a corridor, she observed that she could ‘smell the dust’, and was proved correct when she ran her finger over the top of a picture frame.
We didn’t see the logical conclusion. Throughout her tour of inspection, she’d list faults found. The hotel’s maid would assemble before her, and she’d read out the issues; the lass responsible for each would be expected to acknowledge that she was the one who should be blamed.
Should any of the staff have made three mistakes, she’d be kept back once her colleagues had left the room. A clothes brush, hard, on the bare bottom would seem like an appropriate punishment in such a traditional building – with the cane for repeat offenders.
The hotel would, it seem, do anything their richer and more influential guests requested. Examples of girls and implements procured might not have gone amiss! And the programme also missed a trick, I think, in not discussing the antics of the guests. “Here’s Dr Jenkins in suite 112, disciplining a girl.”, with carefully-filmed footage?
Now that would be the program I would watch!