Woolley Grange Review

The great weekend had a lot to do with the company and weather and very little to do with the hotel.

The idea of a great small country house hotel that catered for children as well as kids in a beautiful location was very appealing. However, the reality was somewhat different.

Our room was on the ground floor in annex next to the back of the main building and consisted of two small interconnecting rooms. One with a double bed the other with a folding sofa. Both rooms had small TVs and DVD players. The rooms could be described as bijoux but I think tatty would be more appropriate. None of the windows in the main room opened and as all the fans had been allocated to other rooms it was a hot uncomfortable night.

The main building was an attractive and comfortable country house in very attractive grounds. The small swimming pool and surrounding areas were satisfactory. However when the sun came out there were insufficient space or deck chairs.

The onsite creche was useful and the staff were very pleasant however my six year old prefered to spend most of her time with us. So we didn't get much use from it. For people with younger children I am sure the creche would have been a much bigger plus. #

The food quality was very good but the service was shocking. The hotel was undoubtedly understaffed which gave a stressed atmosphere at all meal times. Despite ordering dinner at lunch time (due to being in a party of 6) the kitchen was unable to serve all members of our party at the same time. On Saturday night one main course didn’t arrive until dessert. The surly waiters were disinterested and unapologetic. Escalating the complaint was met by silence from the hotel management. If Basil Fawlty was around he would be working at Woolley Grange.

And the cost of a two night stay for two adults and a child £832.30 - Never again

Beautiful Berlin

Back from Beautiful Berlin

This was my first trip to Berlin. Having travelled to Munich, Dusseldorf and Cologne I was expecting something somewhat different. Berlin is one of the most relaxed cities I have visited. The streets are lined with smart shops, cool cafes and restaurants.

There are plenty of interesting sites to visit including Checkpoint Charlie, remaining parts of the Berlin wall and the Jewish Museum.

The Concorde hotel is an excellent, clean, modern, quiet, 5 star hotel. The rooms were well designed and spacious. The hotel is an excellent central location within walking distance of several Berlin landmarks. The staff were friendly helpful and efficient. Highly recommended.
Unfortunately I was on a business trip, but I would definitely return for pleasure.

New York

I have not been to New York for many years. We got a great deal on expedia staying at the W Hotel so off we went.

The W group is all about style. A fantastic lobby and bar full of staff and guests straight out of the pages of GQ or Vogue. Unfortunately there is considerably more style than substance at the W. It is a clever concept take a 2 or 3 star hotel in a great location, add great interior design in the common areas, create a atmosphere and then charge 4 or 5 star prices.

Rooms at the W are divided into "Cozy", "Spectacular", "Fantastic" and "Mega" rooms. This aggressive American marketing tactic is a spectacular own goal when it comes to managing guest expectations.

Our "spectacular" room was far from spectacular. The room was really, really small. The chair that dominated a corner of the room was threadbare. The air conditioning was extremely loud. The spectacular room looked straight out onto a car park wall.

W Room type translation

· Cozy Room = Cupboard
· Spectacular Room = Large Cupboard
· Fantastic Room = Small Room
· Mega Room = Standard hotel room

All credit to the staff, when we told them of our dissatisfaction with our room they agreed to upgrade us the following night from a Spectacular Room to a Mega Room (shown in the picture above) at no extra charge.

New York was great. Our experiences included Sushi Samba which was a great and highly original restaurant. It combined South America food and music with incredible Sushi prepared in front of us.

With the pound at two dollars who could stay away from the shops ?

Virgin Atlantic Rant

I recently had the misfortune of flying to the US on Virgin Atlantic. It had been a while since my last trip to the US and I was really surprised by how little leg room I got on a transatlantic flight. There seemed to be more leg room on the domestic connection from Manchester to London. Forget all the information about seat pitch and legroom. If you get allocated a seat like mine you have got a problem. A substantial part of the supposed legroom was taken up by a metal box which was attached to the floor and housed Virgins state of the art entertainment system. It wasn’t just my seat; numerous seats on the flight had these obstructions. If you are tall and get a seat like mine you can forget about a comfortable journey.

Well at least I had the in-flight movies, music and games. Well not on my flight. The state of the art virgin entertainment system was so sophisticated that the crew could not get it to work for the first 6 hours of the flight. The equipment hadn’t been maintained and the some of the buttons had fallen out on the controller on my seat .

Sat cramped and bored I had plenty of time to listen to crew complaining about the passengers. All in all it was a poor flight. What did Virgin have to say when I wrote to them. Nothing, they haven’t replied. Maybe Richard Branson’s staff doesn’t read passenger comments and simply want to cram as many people as possible onto their aircraft. From my search on the internet I am certainly not the only dissatisfied passenger. The Virgin brand used to mean quality, originality and service. Not anymore.

I will be cutting up my Virgin Atlantic frequent flyer card and choosing a different airline next time.

Osho Day 7 Departure Day

Day 7

There was a knock at the door. The door not disturb sign had been ignored. It was 8.20 am. It was Joel.

Joel knew it was departure day. He had woken up and a thought had made its way into his head. Joel had a purpose - To depart

“WHAT” I bellowed at the door.

“What time we are leaving ?”

“Five thirty this afternoon” I replied.

I was counting the hours. I lay in bed working out ways to avoid having to wear my maroon robe. I could stay in my room until departure time but I decide to get up and meet Joel for lunch. I was no longer a disciple. I looked at the robe wearers with sympathy. These people needed help.

We went for lunch.

Joel was at the counter. He had found the Bombay Aloo. Joel careful positioned his bowl picked up the scooper and careful starting the intricate task of transferring potato to bowl. There were rules about how food was put into bowls at Osho. To avoid biological contamination, the bowl had to remain on your tray at all times. A queue had formed behind Joel. Carefully he scooped, transferred and deposited the turmeric covered potato chunks. But that wasn’t the end of the process. Once deposited the potato had be levelled and compacted in the bowl before the processes started again. Joel was oblivious to the impatient people behind him. Joel went through the process with the second scoop until the bowl was filled to just the right level and so he moved around the canteen.

We were ready to leave.

So what did I think of Osho…..

Well, I am still thinking about it. It was a very interesting experience.

The Nadabrahma meditation was a revelation.

The massage was great. The place and people were very nice

But the rest of it seemed a joke. A week long fancy dress party. It was emotional valium for the internationally depressed. An addictive quick fix which brought addicts back to Pune year after year, for months at a time.

For me Osho was at best a pseudo spiritual Chinese takeaway quickly removing the misery in ones life. A temporary departure from problems at home. But like Chinese food, an hour later and you need something else to feed on.

At worst, it was a McDonalds, a sanitised, westernised money making machine feeding the desire of the affluently depressed with total unadulterated crap.

I could not believe what people would allow themselves to do. Get up for 6.00 am and do dynamic mediation. Wear maroon robes. Wear white robes. Walking round with single eye patches. Wear white socks. If it was a rule to walk on one leg whilst wearing underpants on your head at 4.00pm there would be people doing it.

Maybe this was the cosmic joke- That people would pay for this sort of mild humiliation whilst Osho lay in rest, near one of his many Rolls Royces.

Osho Day 6 New Years Day

I was relieved that I was leaving the following day.

No more wearing the purple robe. I was checking my breath. I smelt curry on my breath all the time now or was I just imagining it. I wasnt sure.

Joel had decided he was not staying on after I left. I wanted to do the Samedi mediation but Joel needed to change his plane ticket so I thought it more important to go with him. Thirty one years old, director of a successful London market research company but he would always be my “little” brother.

Lunch was the special New Years day brunch. There were posters advertising the brunch. On it were pictures of melon, sandwiches, cake. I was hopeful, but no, you’ve guess it - curry.

We ate outside. The courtyard was a nicely landscaped area with parasol covered tables. The sun shone. It was warm but not hot. Really great soothing music played. A dancer walked around belly dancing and throwing rose petals in the air. It was a great really enjoyable relaxed atmosphere. Then the sound system packed in and instantly lunch turned back into the mundane everyday curry munching event it had been all week.

There was a later Samadhi meditation which I had decided to go to. I had checked the rules as there were many rules for mediation. For this meditation which is carried out where Osho’s ashes were spread, you needed maroon robe and white socks. I was expecting to be taken into a garden. Instead I walked into a marble floored foyer. On the right were people taking there shoes off. On the left was a 1980’s gold stretch Rolls Royce limousine. Osho obviously wanted his prize possessions near him. We then passed into another room with a leather dentist’s chair, along a narrow corridor with books from floor to ceiling encased behind plates of glass. I was out the door of the room where the mediation was to take place. It was packed; people were struggling to find space to sit down. I couldn’t hide amongst a huge group like in the main auditorium. I left quickly passing the dentist chair and Rolls Royce on the way.

More Zen rummy and dinner followed. Dinner was quiet that night. People had gone off early to watch the variety show. Here the visitors sang and danced in their various national styles and languages. We took our seats at table near to the bar. Our chairs soon started pointing away from the stage to watch the Buddhist bar service delivering the “waiting for drinks meditation”. People were getting frustrated, buying drinks from the bar involved various rules that needed to be obeyed.

Rule 1

You had to order from a waiter when you were sat at your table. There was a sign on the bar which stated “Table Service”. So when people came to the bar, the three static bar staff would point at the sign. The system was great in theory. The only problem was that the waiter didn’t leave the bar. The bar staff and waiter stood there complaining. “I don’t understand why people don’t read the sign”. People would come to the bar, be sent away and would return 10 minutes to argue that they hadnt been served. As the evening drew on the bar area was surrounded by people complaining that they hadnt been served. “I am sorry we are very busy tonight you have to wait” protested the static waiters.

Rule 2

You bought vouchers that you used to pay for food or anything else you needed on the campus. However, the bar used a different voucher system. So once people had finally ordered their drinks they couldn’t pay and further confrontation would ensue.

This was the closest we got to seeing Buddhists rioting.

Osho Day 5 New Years Eve

I couldn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t face the thought of facing the dining hall or putting on that stupid maroon robe.

I was missing my juicer.

There was fruit at Osho. Despite being organic and locally grown it wasn’t very appetising and surely every other western lentil eating, Soya drinking Buddhist also wanted juice. I was also missing chocolate.

I got up. It was lunch time. I had a really good sleep. The second time that week I had slept 12 hours. I hadn’t slept 12 hours straight in the last 5 years so something good had happened. Maybe it was the massages, mediation or jet lag. Also the cleaners were very considerate. Unlike other Indian hotels I had stayed they didn’t ignore the “Do not disturb sign” and ask if you wanted your room cleaned at 7.00 am.

I got up strolled off and got an Indian croissant. Indian croissants are not like French Croissants. If you were hit in the head by an Indian croissant you had a serious problem.

I was still excited about my experience in Nadabrahma Meditation. So until then I would participate in the listening to my Ipod mediation whilst doing sudoku puzzle meditation.

It was time, off I went. Unusually I hadn't seen Joel all day. He had told me that he was going on the “A day for the heart course”. But as this involved money, a booking, a timetable, a watch and a map I had dismissed this as wishful thinking.

I knocked on his door. No answer. I was surprised.

I went off to the auditorium. The humming started. I got into it. After a while I separated my mind from my body. I desperately wanted to empty my head. In order to do this I had to “effortlessly stop thinking”. I couldn’t do it. Thoughts kept going through my mind. I just couldn’t do it. The session passed quickly but I was really disappointed. I was no longer enlightened. As I walked out the Auditorium I watched a coca cola dispensing machine being wheeled into one of the buildings on the Osho campus.

At 6.00pm there was a knock the door. It was Joel. He had organised his course and he had found it very interesting. He had had a great psychic connection with a 65 old Indian woman. How his parents would be krelling when they heard this news about there 30 year old single son.

Two rounds of zen rummy and then “Are you going to the evening meeting” said Joel. He was obviously taking the piss. “Yer right”. We then had to end the next round prematurely as he really was going to the evening meeting. I was worried.

Dinner time.

I was suffering curry cramp. Oshos equivalent of Club Med buffet fatigue where you pig out on the first night but as the week goes on you make fewer and fewer trips to the buffet counter and by the end of the trip I would be on bread and cheese. Unfortunately there was no cheese at Osho.

The food at Osho was excellent. Right up my street. Organic Vegetarian Indian cuisine I couldn’t think of anything better. The whole of Osho seemed immaculately clean and smelt odourless. They had very strict hygiene rules and I hadnt heard of anyone suffering stomach problems so I had eaten the food with confidence but now after 5 days of it, the thought of curry was rather off putting.

After dinner people would come up and hug Joel. Perhaps they had realised he was the Guru. There was an Austrian Freelance photographer and her boyfriend, a little Indian man and a small Italian woman. These were people from his class. Hugging was big at Osho.

The New Years Eve celebration took the form of a "rave". In the centre of the campus was a marble platform the size of a football pitch. There was high energy music, lasers, people twirling burning batons, Male Punjabi dancers.

Cigarettes and alcohol were always on display at Osho. Cocktails and champagne were available from the bar.

We joined in with the dancing. I did my best impression of someone that knew how to dance. Whilst trying to avoid eye contact with a group ropey looking Austrian girls, who by coincidence also pretended to know how to dance while trying to avoid eye contact with me.

Midnight came and went.