365 Degrees, Burning Down The... Hotel

Friday night, I got home from work to welcome in the weekend and wanted to get my Gamecube from my coworker's room as I lent it to him but first I stuck some rice on. In the room, there is no gas; instead we have an induction cooker - a terrible invention if you ask me, which is near uncontrollable. I lie; there are two settings - simmer or destroy, no in between. Which is actually better than the microwave, which can only be set on "nuke"*.

I went to his room and stayed for about 5 minutes. Back in the corridor, the fire alarm was flashing; sensibly the alarm only sounds once management have asserted there is danger. I knew automatically this was my rice and rushed back to my room to find 5 staff standing outside. I opened the door midst apology and a huge cloud of smoke escaped into the hallway. The bottom of my pan was 2 inches thick of black burnt rice (which I have since cleaned up) and my room stunk of smoke. The staff were using my newspapers and books to waft the smoke out of the window. They told me to be careful but not to worry; it happens quite frequently with these machines.

The Manager unlocked my windows which are usually locked for safety reasons. I either became accustomed to the smell or it sifted away but eventually the room smelt fine. Housekeeping came to lock my window but I told her (Kitty Wong - awesome name!) that it still smelt so could she leave it. She called the Manager who gave the following response:

I don't have to lock it but must keep it closed.

Does that make any sense? Anyway, Kitty closed my window, without locking, and left.

So every smoke cloud does have a silver lining - if I work tactically, my windows won't be locked**.

To celebrate, I took this picture of my view:

Joking aside, I did feel like one step closer to Alan Partridge status!

*a jacket potato takes 3 minutes to soften through - insane!
**i.e. close them on cleaning days.