Energy savings in London

I am staying in a hotel in London called the Grange Holborn. A nice hotel, pleasant staff. I feel taken care of. I have one interesting story.

The room is very bright and airy with a wall of windows gives plenty of natural light. These windows face the street. Anyway, after I completed yesterday's posting, I close the drapes to darken the room before lying down to rest. I turned the light switch on near my bed, nothing. There is a light switch near the door, I turn it on. Nothing. I turn on the light switch near the TV, nothing. I do all this again. I try the TV, it works. I try all the light switches, again they don't work.

Finally, feeling like a complete idiot, I call up the front desk, who put me through to the concierge. They tell me that there is a card reader near the door, I had seen it and wondered what it was. Seems you put your room key in to activate the lights. Makes sense. About one minute after you remove the key, the lights turn off. Theoretically, because this is literally next to the door, you won't forget your room key. Interesting way to conserve electricity. No chance someone will go off and leave their lights on.

I also noted that the water is not as hot as we are used to in America, at least not at the hotel. I got my answer to this through a commercial on a British TV station aimed at getting people to turn the temp down on the water they use to wash clothes.

As for my energy, I did not nap yesterday afternoon. I had a nice visit with my friends, they took care of the blearly eyed me. Later, I did get a good nights sleep.