Last minute accommodation to catch an event in town. 1. We arrived to have our quoted $ increased by more than 50%. 2. There is no internal access to what can only be described as The Shining hallway chic…if The Shining was set in a pub and the creepy twins were too depressed to stare at you as you arrived. 3. The hallway smelt like fresh cat poo, thanks to the shared loo scenario at either entrance wafting that particular vintage through the place. It smelled like that for almost 2 hours. 4. The only window in our murder room looked out into a tiny “outdoor” sealed, roofed “room” that was littered with cigarettes butts, water heaters, and the emptiness of long abandoned webs…not even arachnids found survival here. We quickly accepted they were an omen of the loss of hope that one might escape their impending abduction by means of this filthy and depressed, airless void. Our inescapable space was also overlooked by a shared loo and another room of victims…or the killer himself?? Lucky bastards got to look at the water heaters and not the unclosable loo window with its direct line of sight and within arms reach so you can hear the splattery prostates of the other victims throughout the night as they desperately try to shed weight for a faster escape should the local secret-society come to claim their prize, sacrificing them to their gods of choice at dawn. 5. Our airless room had no air conditioning but, as we were informed by one brave informant also stuck in hotel California, “at least you have a fan”. True. Our torturer had provided a small plastic table-top fan to ensure we had not-quite-enough air movement through the room to feel it’s benefit, or cool it down from the stifling heat of the oven that this room was. 6. There was no television, no radio, no contact with the outside world at all. We were isolated and cut off, lest we brave the stench of fresh cat poo…a stench that turned out to be the byproduct of one of the beer garden guests. Did they flush? Did they survive???? We dared not explore because we just did not want to know. 7. Try as we might, we watched in pain and distress as our phones slowly died. This fan, our only provider of hope, used the second to last functioning powerpoint in the room. The tricksters had fooled us with the offer of two PowerPoints! But alas, our serial killers ultimate joy came in the knowledge that not only had we been charged a mere $20 less than we would pay for a room with a balcony and water views, just 50m away from us, but between us we were unable to charge our phones. As we huddled around the only source of entertainment on offer to us in the dark, waiting for the next enlarged prostate to feel the frustration that can only be experienced by someone that always, desperately needs to wee…but can’t, we felt the depression that must have kept the creepy Shining twins hidden from their targets. 8. It wasn’t that bad, while we waited for our time to leave the room, we drank $12 tins of passion fruit vodka from down stairs, and took turns trying to apply our makeup….while it tried to slide off us, because despite the lack of mood lighting - or anything other than the kind of lights nightclubs use to scare off the last of the tipsy hopefuls at the end of the night, and the fan, we listened to our only plugged in phone as it played good music through its tiny speaker. A word from the wise: the room must have been where the term “sweat box” originated, so bring your own essential oils for that more authentic sauna experience….and forget the makeup. It just won’t stay on. 9. We returned home having experienced the amazing vocals of Katie Noonan, a treat for what might be our last night on this earthly plane. Dodging the leaky roof and surviving the rotting stairs, we were grateful the cat poo smell had finally passed as we entered our little murder room and waited for dawn and our fate to arrive….only to have our doom scrolling interrupted by house keeping kindly telling us we hadn’t been chosen, and that check out was in 23 minutes. Poor bastard with the enlarged prostate.…