Booking a room at the Griffin House Hotel from my home in Australia, I imagined from the description a small cosy B&B, with some cute but nice rooms, a filling breakfast and free wireless internet. After all, for 70 quid a night, it would be quite reasonable to expect ‘nice’. You don’t get ‘great’ or even ‘good’ in London for less than 120 a night. I’ve stayed in many hotels over the years. Some cost a lot less than the Griffin House and were virtually five-star apartments (The Salisbury Hotel on 57th Street in New York is amazing), others cost a lot less and were hideous (The Globe Hotel, Oswiecim, Poland begs some politically incorrect comparisons with the former death camp across the railway line). But the Griffin House Hotel takes the Golden Turd in the All-Time Overpriced Dump category.

When I checked into the Griffin House and was struck by the profound sourness of the staff. Since I decided to give up living in Britain during the Thatcher tyranny, a kind of officious and humourless pseudo-customer-service has emerged, where you the customer are told you’re very important yet treated as an undeserving cretin with the audacity to be giving them money. But the Griffin House staff have entered a new Superleague of crapulence in the arena of customer f***-you-ness.

I paid for my two nights on arrival and was given the key to my room “down the stairs and next to the Breakfast Room”. In the basement? Yes, in the basement. The room was so small that the bedside tables were across from the creeky double bed, since there was virtually no room either side. The walls were stained by a tide-mark of damp rising from the floor. The shower was in a cupboard. Yes, a cupboard shower. Its nozzle bracket hung loosely from the wall, and when I took a shower the floor quickly with filled with water around my ankles. The toilet cupboard was fitted with a motion-detector air freshener, that spat Glade at me every time I entered the room, and if I dared move while sitting on the seat. Don’t take too long having a dump – you’ll come out smelling like a disinfectant cake.

The signal for the free wireless internet was unserviceably weak. I complained, nicely, and was told I could get a better signal in the Breakfast Room next door. But I was then questioned by other staff about what I was doing loitering there. “What room are you from?! What room are you from?!!!”

The view from my window was the window of the kitchen, six inches away, which lit up 6:30am every morning and emanated with the clanging of pots. The first morning I just wanted the hell out of the Hotel, so I avoided the free breakfast in the Breakfast Room and ate at the Pret a Manger near Marble Arch.

The second morning, however, I thought, hey, what the hell, it’s paid for, I might as well get something for my 70 quid a night. And, I have to say, this decision it worth every single penny. I was treated to a new and unaired episode of Falty Towers. It was truly hilarious. I took a seat at one of the three four-seater tables (a curious choice of seating, giving that the hotel’s rooms are either singles or doubles). The cook/waitress/entertainment came out of the kitchen to take my order. I had Option 1 or Option 2, the basic difference being eggs or cereal, and the choice of tea, coffee or hot chocolate. Could I order a black coffee? The milk is on your table, of course, the coffee comes out black. And how dare I ask such a ridiculous question. Since the coffee I ordered never showed up, they could have got away with spoiling me so much for choice anyway.

I was distracted from my scrambled eggs by a French woman and her two daughters entering the Breakfast Room at 9:40am. The cook/waitress ordered “Sit! Sit...! Come on...! SIT! We stop serving at 10am...! Sit or you won’t get anything!” The party of three was coerced to sit across two different tables, the kids looking quite distressed and intimidated. Their order was taken with the same minus-scale level of respect I had experienced. Then the cook/waitress brought out three glasses of orange juice and slammed them down in front of each diner as though she was closing an auction. I was expecting next a large pot of gruel and Mr Bumble shouting “MORE?!” It would have been hilarious had the kids not have been trembling. I can just imagine what they would say when they get back to Lille or Paris or Lyon and tell their friends and family about the “tres merde” time they’d had in London.

Since I’ve stayed at the Salisbury Hotel in New York, I’ve told so many people about it, and I know friends have told their friends, and so that place’s reputation will only grow and it will get more clients. The staff at the Griffin House just do not get this. I mean, who cares if you’ve had a crap time in their dumpy hotel, when there’s still plenty of suckers out there, like I was, who read the misleading description of the hotel, think they might be getting 70 quid of hotel value and are duped into booking.

Just after I checked out, I went for a pint at the pub on the corner, the Duke of Kendal. The barmaid asked where I’d been staying and we had a conversation about what a thoroughly crap time I’d had at the Griffin. “Oh! I won’t recommend anyone stays there then...!” she said.

And that too is why I’m writing this review. Just generally, if you get a bad vibe about a place when you arrive, ask to see the room *before* you pay anything. But more specifically, please save yourself the feeling of being ripped-off, abused and imprisoned in a basement and avoid the Griffin House Hotel.

In short, I have three things to say about the Griffin House:
1. Do not stay at this hotel.
2. Do not stay at this hotel.
3. And do NOT stay at this hotel.