I stumbled upon some kinsfolk this week and it came as quite a surprise to find them not at some sort of weather trainspotting Christmas drinks at the MET (where surely stumbling would be the NORM! Yeah!), but in the single room of a VERY swish Paris hotel. Coming back to number 34 late one night, I entered to curtains drawn, soft music playing and this lying on my pillow.
HOW DID THEY KNOW? For a moment I thought maybe they were incredibly thorough and had dedicated researchers for each of their guests (Mr K in room 204 is depressingly single and here on a boring work trip. Please leave him extra Jack Daniels in the mini bar and a pass to the Moulin Rouge. Gayle in 65 is on her own eat, pray, love odyssey. She'll require an excess of complimentary chocolate and and Mr K’s room number). I’m now fairly sure that kind of attention is time consuming and probably doesn’t involve reading my blog. What it does mean is that this particular hotel leaves this kind note on what to expect tomorrow because they are weather lovers. This little thought that counts sets this inn apart from thousands of others trying to corner the weather watching market (clearly their aim).
On close inspection what draws us to this little card is the graphics; they really have covered nearly all bases. Cheeky sun and cloud cover is represented, along with the necessary precipitation graphic (this is the only one that could be a little too ambiguous. I mean, FAT rain? Or little light rain? Knowing the possibilities for rain are indeed endless, we’re letting this slide. For now). Following the graphics you have the temperature reading and they’ve given you two readings, as is standard. The key difference here is that they’ve presented morning and afternoon. Morning! Afternoon! Squeal!!! How I hate the standard two temperature offering which gives you the daytime reading followed by a random middle of the night reading. Even people up and at 'em in the middle of the night aren’t generally querying the temperature. Morning and afternoon! What sense they make, the French.
On a negative side I was a little put out that the nameless room maid responsible for this treat hadn’t bothered to indicate the wind force, as was set out. To be fair, if I remember the day perhaps there really WAS no wind to speak of, so we’ll let no name off for this one. For now.
Everything about this little card speaks to the aesthetically minded weather watcher. The font size (small and firm), the contrasting colours (in delightful Autumnal flavours), the format that resembles a multiple choice test (which at school were my favourite. God I love filling in a form), all of these finer details give little bursts of formal weather report joy.
In a world of pain, suffering, financial woes and jeggings, it is indeed the little things. So thank you to whoever committed to this little thought at the hotel's costumer service brainstorming session. Your fight to bring weather to the same level as the breakfast menu is a valiant one.
London tomorrow: I would tick the happy smiling sun, then possibly get a bit freestyle with some imagery around the temperatures. 4 degrees is a pretty fun number to play with...
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