As I Recall, Every Friday Is Something-Or-Other Night Here At The Sheraton Skyline Hotel
July, 1996 (continued): As I mentioned in our last installment, July saw me back in London for the European version of PD Grad School, which was held at the Sheraton Skyline Hotel across the street from Heathrow Airport.
This, by the way, is a very convenient location for anyone who needs to spend the night prior to catching a flight from Heathrow. A few notes on my stay there….
Although the hotel is quite nice, their food is perhaps the blandest I’ve ever experienced.
Yes, “British cuisine” is considered by many to be an oxymoron. But even in England, if you ate a meal described as “chicken curry,” you would expect to be able to taste at least a slight hint of curry. This food, however, was 100% flavor-free.
The Sheraton was very modern…so modern that during my entire stay I was unable to figure out how to operate the panel that controlled my suite’s light fixtures. Whenever I wanted to turn something on or off, I would hit buttons at random until I achieved the desired result.
(One of our guest speakers, Rasa Kaye, confided to me that she, too, was unable to decipher her room’s lighting code.)
During my Sunday morning session, a very foul odor permeated our meeting room. We never did learn what caused it. (At least we can assume it wasn’t the hotel’s food, given its complete lack of sensory impact.)
But the highlight of my stay was witnessing a screaming match — in the hotel lobby — between the hotel’s concierge and the driver of one of the airport shuttle buses. They found themselves in violent disagreement regarding which airport terminal a departing guest should be taken to.
