After seeing Jon Ronson, who had an entertaining column in the Guardian Weekend magazine when I was younger, question the feasibility of the construction of a big acrylic box (“The slot for the sandwiches alone would cost a fortune”), I started to watch You. The first weird points for me were a bookshopkeeper wearing an apron and wrapping a book in a paper bag like a prescription, but maybe those things are normal in America, which is a foreign country. Also, I was confused by the phrase “hostel goose”, but it turned out to be “hostile goose”, which made much more sense.
It’s a bit preposterous, but I intend to watch it to the end. Didn’t feel any admiration, or anything like that, for the murderer/stalker character’s deft murdering, stalking, body disposal, or acrylic box fabrication. I actually made a laser-cut acrylic bookshelf once (GCSE woodwork/metalwork), but no plans to dust of my skills and make a slot for sandwiches.
The Trashfuture podcast (I’m not sure which episode) mentioned OYO, the largest hotel chain you’ve never heard of. Their innovative business model consists of being quite impressively cheap, to such an extent that they, and the independent hotels they daub their logo onto, lose money hand over fist. Also:
For instance, we found that portraits of Marilyn Monroe increased revPAR [revenue per available room] of a property by 10% to 11% on average. Consumers classify hotels like this as “boutique.” It began when one of our hotels in Wichita Falls, Texas, saw revPAR improve by 25% after we put Marilyn Monroe portraits on the walls. Then we started copy-pasting this.
Which is wild, and redolent of Google’s “41 shades of blue”. Which, by the way, has given way to “Act completely randomly, then commission a large, expensive research study at a later date, after the damage of your irresponsible but influential design practices has already taken effect.”
As an occasional hotel user, and never one to look a gift dockless bike in the mouth (for example), I’m a bit tempted to sample their offer, but would I be complicit in the downfall of salt-of-the-earth independent hotel owners and workers? And, like with Airbnb, there are some concerns about safety and quality control and things – yes, maybe hostels infested with hostile hostel geese.
I went to the seaside, and made a decision, which are both fun things to make and do. Have a good week.