Turn down? Turn it down

I hate posh hotels. It's not so much the hotels themselves, it's the crawling service ethic I can't stand. I like to carry my own bags to the room and I don't need to be shown where the wash hand basin is.

As for the triangular pointy end on the toilet paper: what's that all about? Is there a private toilet anywhere in the world where every member of the family is house-trained to fold the end of the toilet paper after use? I bet they don't even do that at Buckingham Palace. Certainly not if they save their cornflakes in Tupperware.

And what are we to make of the hotel evening turn down service? There you are in your room, minding your own business, when there's a knock on the door and a maid walks in to turn down your sheets a few inches before placing a chocolate on your pillow. This must be a contender for the most pointless activity in history. Who invented it and why?

Was there a hotel guest one day so weak with exhaustion that he could not flip his sheets over before getting in to bed? Did they revive him with chocolate?

These, we should remember, are the same hotels that treat your request for a computer wif-fi connection as if you were asking them to steal the Crown Jewels for you. You need shoe polish? A hair brush? Well you know where the shop is sir, a mile down the road, open saints days, any month without an "r" in it and every blue moon.

I would place hot towels on aeroplanes in the same category. Yet I always take the towel dutifully and rub my face and hands as if I had benefited from the kindest of gestures. Yes I might be heading for London with my luggage in Singapore, but what is that minor inconvenience against the pleasure of a refreshing hot towel?

Fed up of waiting for that take-off slot? Take a hot towel. Put out by the 100-mile airport diversion? Not with your hot towel. Concussed by that bottle from the overhead locker? We have just the thing. It's nice to know they care.