I HAVE spent the night in a hotel. There, that shocked you. You thought I never left the hoose, other than to waddle aboot in the nearby forest or doon by the lonely shore.

That’s true, mostly, but on this occasion I’d no alternative. It wasn’t for pleasure, though I tried making the most of it.

Nor, needless to say, was it anything plush, but a “budget” hotel, if not the worst of them.

Indeed, it was rather fine, once you got the hang of it. I used to spend considerable time in hotels. For some reason, too, newspapers back in the day insisted on booking a fellow into posh ones when on a job, though mostly I’d have preferred a B&B.

This time, though, I wanted more anonymity; I didn’t want to wear the mask of joviality.

However, I indulged in merry banter with the pleasant chap behind the desk, who even had the decency to laugh uproariously when my sleeve caught the plaster Santa on the counter and smashed it to the floor.

There are no keys to the rooms now, only cards.

I’d used these in the distant past, and almost always had to call the fire brigade to afford me ingress. No such problems this time although, once inside, I couldn’t get the lights to come on. I was about to summon a constable when I noticed a wee berth into which fitted the aforementioned card and – hey, presto! – on came the lights. Whatever will they think of next?

Dinner didn’t go quite so well. The restaurant wasn’t open, and the local chippie was shut, so I’d to settle for corner shop sandwiches. Still, once I’d got my whisky and PG Wodehouse novel out, it wasn’t so different from being at home, except everything was clean and tidy.

Often, when I return to my hovel from a hotel or B&B, my heart sinks at the mess. How does it get like this? Sometimes, I spend hours sitting in a chair, wondering why my house is so untidy.

It’s then that I start fantasising about staying permanently in a hotel. I guess it would be costly, but maybe we could cut a deal (I do the dishes, you clean my room).

It would be grand to get rid of all one’s possessions and live in a place that had the heating on all day and where someone came in daily and kept things ship-shape. Another plus point is that they always have better shower gels than any that we plebs can buy in the supermarket. However, you’d have to choose your hotel carefully and ensure you got a room far from the hoi polloi.

It’s not unusual to hear a loud television from the next room or, worse still, people being lewd and libidinous, which nonsense I have often had to put a stop to in the past.

Even posh hotels will sometimes give you a room right next to the fire doors and, if it’s also facing room inwards, you’ll often find a massive noisy industrial installation outside at the back, which I think is for the heating.

Oddly enough, it occurs to me that I’m currently reading a book about an elderly lady who lives in a hotel: Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, by Elizabeth Taylor (not that one).

It’s a fine novel, set in the 1960s, though the hotel is dowdy, and life among the other permanent residents trying.

I guess in the end there’s no place like home; certainly no place as messy.

Hoard instinct

WHY are hoards and whatnot, from a certain time in Scotland’s history, referred to as “Viking age”? There’s no proof these clowns had anything to do with it.

You might as well have future generations talk about our times as “the Isis age”.

Why are periods of our past defined by this peripheral band of terrorists, torturers and tree-hewers (blootered so the locals couldn’t build boats)? They set fire to Skye and boasted of killing all the inhabitants, though they were probably making that up, as usual.

Mighty warriors? They used the element of surprise to creep up on undefended villages or monasteries inhabited by pacifist monks. They hardly won any major battles, and confined themselves to the outer islands, far from power and proper soldiers who’d have given them a right doin’.

Icelandic pirates were warned by their own authorities not to raid Scotland because they’d get handed their helmets.

True, the Danes fought decent battles in England, but we got the Norwegians, who spent most of their time

flower-arranging and, Scandi-style, taxing everything that moved.

To hell with all of them. And here’s hoping that, when future generations find loo rolls, pasta, tins of chicken curry and other stuff from our time, they don’t refer to the hoard as “Virus age”.

Five things we’ve learned this week

Restaurateur Gordon Ramsay defended his £19 fried breakfast, telling critics: “If you’re worried about the price you can’t f*****g afford it.” Angrily, he added: “I stand by it. I swear by it.” Yes, we can see that.

Loopy lard-bucket Kim Jong-un is hoping to attract British tourists to his earthly paradise of North Korea with a new £1 billion holiday resort. As a matter of etiquette: do you tip the people following you around all the time?

Brazilian and Canadian researchers found that laughter helps hospital patients cope with the stresses of treatment. Children, in particular, responded to being entertained by clowns. How odd. Even as an adult, clowns make me cry with terror.

Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi says the band had a fifth member – a ghost. Spooky things happened, such as the lights going out in a chippie as the group approached. Weird, man. But it was the seventies: you had to not be there.

Even a hardened hack like your columnist was shocked to read that, pre-Christmas, punters were stockpiling … lettuce. Influential English newspaper the Daily Star warned that it was “the tip of the iceberg”. Also, lettuce makes a terrible gift.