Feeling good about ourselves
RECENTLY I was stupid enough to fracture three ribs in five places and to collapse my right lung. I was completely unable to perform the most basic functions such as breathing, laughing or going to the lavatory without suffering excruciating pain.
Throughout the month of April I learnt who my friends really were. These friends have taught me that they can run the Goring perfectly well without me. I sit in my office until the staff get fed up with my moaning and send me home, where I sit in a chair until my wife gets fed up with me and sends me back to the hotel.
Due to my incapacity the hotel has had a wonderful April. Easter, traditionally the second-quietest period of the year, was more than twice as busy as Easter 1994, and business picked up to 100% occupancy on the following Wednesday. In 1994, business did not really pick up until after the bank holiday on May Day.
We are also delighted that this holiday has been replaced in 1995 with the VE Day bank holiday on 8 May. This simple switch in emphasis will transform London from "bad news deadness" to "good news life and enthusiasm".
Most London hotels are entering into the spirit of the occasion by organising special programmes of events for the whole period. I have discovered some old Goring ration cards and documents from both 1918 (when we also had rationing) and 1945, which will be incorporated into our programme.
Surely the illusive "feel-good factor" has arrived. If not, how much better do people want to feel? Why do we all moan so much?
Inflation remains very low. Interest rates are staying at their lowest for 20 years. Direct taxation is at itslowest since the war. Unemployment, though still high, is going down. Exports are at an all-time high.
Our Westminster area of London has never been cleaner (something those of us who remember the smog and grime and dustmen's strikes of the pre-1970s will appreciate).
I have just been expertly treated, free of charge, in two separate hospitals by the most caring and professional staff imaginable.
Of course the British system has its faults, but those faults are fewer and our advantages are greater than in most other world economies.
Many people still complain and ask for more. It is unreasonable to expect that they will ever get it.
Perhaps it is time for the moaners and detractors to go and sample life in some other country and leave those of us with enthusiasm to make the best of the advantages we already have. n
