I was lucky to stay in the Ikea hotel recently and let me tell you it lived up to all my expectations. Splendidly ornate furnishings with crystal-laden chandeliers, personal butlers, and a wine list thicker than Shakespeare’s collected works.
I’m joking, of course. The Ikea Hotel in the Swedish town of Älmhult is exactly as you might imagine. They hand you an Allen key at reception with instructions for assembling your bedroom and bathroom. Six hours later, you throw the instructions out the window and decide to sleep on the floor.
Again, I’m jesting. But it is true that the Ikea Hotel is exactly as you might imagine. A shrine to Scandinavian minimalism, it’s like walking through an Ikea showroom, clean, bright and airy with lots of communal spaces.
Guests are well behaved, there was no one falling over drunk in the bar, and I caused a minor kerfuffle when I went around the breakfast buffet in the wrong direction. My only quibble was that there wasn’t a tiny Ikea pencil to be seen anywhere.
Conflict of many colours – Frank McNally on a finely illustrated atlas of the Civil War
Lunar quest – Frank McNally on moon missions, misinformed quiz questions, and mountweazels
The Dromcollogher cinema fire disaster – Frank McNally on a fateful day in 1926
The spirit of 1965 – Kevin Rafter on Ireland’s first television election
Unusually for the mass-production giant, Ikea only made one hotel, so staying there is a unique experience. But Sweden is a good place to go to for unique hotel experiences.
When I was there, I heard about Utter Inn, an underwater hotel on Lake Mälaren. Hotel might be stretching it a bit as it’s a little red cottage on a floating pier, a kilometre from land. When you check in, you are issued with an inflatable boat and left to your own devices. The bedroom is three metres under the water with panoramic windows facing all directions so you can literally sleep with the fishes. And unlike other mafia figures who have done that, you will wake up the next morning.
But if you are searching for somewhere unique to sleep, remember that looks can be deceiving. When I was looking for one night’s accommodation in the west of Ireland a few years ago, I was taken in by photographs of what looked like a very bijou vintage camper van. I failed to notice that there was no photograph of the exterior, which should have sounded alarm bells.
When we arrived, we were faced with a tiny caravan on the side of the road. Think of the caravan Father Ted holidayed in, but smaller, and you get the picture.
It would have been a bracing, and very dark walk to the owner’s house if we needed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.
It took some choreography to manoeuvre ourselves into the small bed. Unlike Graham Norton’s priestly character in Father Ted, we hadn’t the heart to start an Irish dancing session to raise our spirits. To be honest, I’m not sure the caravan would have been able for any sudden burst of activity. It has since disappeared from the accommodation website. I wouldn’t be surprised if a gentle gust of wind had carried it away.
Some prison cells were more spacious than our little caravan. But that hasn’t stopped many entrepreneurs from converting former prisons into hotels. And sleeping in court became mandatory when the 200-year-old Clerkenwell Magistrates Court in London was converted into a hipster hostel a few years ago.
The hostel is temporarily closed so you cannot check out the Clash Bar, named after the punk band whose members made an appearance in front of a judge there in 1978. And what was their offence? Anarchy? Rioting? Trying to overthrow the government? No, they were brought to court for shooting pigeons.
Apparently, while the band were in the studio one day, bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Topper Headon went to the rooftop with a few others and began firing an air rifle at what they thought were passing pigeons. However, they were very valuable racing pigeons, and the owner was incensed.
Not only that, this was 1978 and Britain was on high alert because of the IRA bombing campaign. It was feared that the musicians were a terrorist gang, targeting the trains beneath them.
Panic ensued and a squad of police cars and a helicopter were mobilised. Headon and Simonon pleaded guilty to criminal damage and also had to pay £700 to the bereaved pigeon fancier.
It wasn’t the only time The Clash members were arrested. Topper Headon and Joe Strummer were arrested the previous year for the decidedly un-rock and roll crime of stealing a pillowcase from the Holiday Inn in Newcastle.
It’s a good job The Clash never stayed at the Ikea Hotel. Imagine the complete carnage they would cause if they forgot to return their tray to the trolley after breakfast?