The iPad in the room: No radio in Canberra

Comment from Peter Saxon

It has been some years since our last visit to Canberra but the Tom Roberts exhibition at the National Gallery proved irresistible.

I may not know much about art but I know what I like and I very much like Tom Roberts who is to Australian art what Banjo Patterson is to poetry. My wife, an art history major, knows considerably more than I about painting (and everything else) is a big Roberts fan too – her favourite is “A Break Away” (pictured right).

While we’ve taken the three hour drive to the National Capital to view several exhibitions over the past 15 years or so, it has been at least that long since we’ve set foot in the War Memorial, so this time we took that in too. The difference is staggering. The buildings and the exhibits have all been expanded, enhanced and brought into the 21st century and up to world standard. The Memorial is as breathtaking as it is moving.

From our two day visit to Canberra it was clear that the whole place had rapidly evolved in recent years. Often maligned for a lack of soul and unfairly aligned with its main industry, federal politics, the city is, nonetheless, worthy of its place as our National Capital and well worth a visit – especially if you haven’t been for five years or more.

Having previously stayed at the magnificent Hyatt, this time we decided to try something new… more like this century than last. We opted for “Hotel Hotel.” Strangely named as it is, we thought perhaps like New York, New York or Wagga Wagga, it’s so nice, they named it twice. In any case, we spent a good twenty minutes on the drive down discussing why they would give it such a weird name til it dawned on us that the answer was self evident.

The building itself (left) is more Frank Gehry than Walter Burley-Griffin. Design Daily magazine described it as  “Punk not Posh.” For the most part, though, the architects seem to have stuck by the “three Fs” maxim: Form Follows Function. Like a good 5 Star hotel room should, ours was spacious and certainly functional with a tilt to technology.

The room came equiped with a fully functioning, internet connected, iPad. The iPad was there to take over (and render obsolete) many of the functions and services that older hotels still provide in analogue. For example, I am not asked which newspaper I wish to have delivered outside my door in the morning. Instead I go to the iPad where I can choose from four or five publications to read online with my coffee.

There’s no printed book of hotel services or magazines with local attractions. Room Service too is taken care of via the Hotel Hotel iPad.

The iPad’s home page, which is the first thing I see as I approach the bedhead gives me the time, temperature, forecast, an alarm AND, of course, a radio. And because it’s an online setup, I can pick up stations from Cairo to Calais, Karachi to Katmandu but not Canberra.

When I touch Australia in the Location menu all I get is a selection of four community stations and the syndicated program, My Generation, on loop. No 2CA or 2CC. No Hit 104.7 or Mix 106.3. Not an ABC station to be found on the technological marvel that is the Hotel Hotel iPad.

Outraged that such a basic human right as access to live and local radio could be denied to guests of Hotel Hotel, I went down to the front desk to express my displeasure in person.

Perhaps the problem was isolated to the iPad in room 217? Not to worry, the smiley faced young person at reception who had learned to spell the word “empathy” at the Hotel Hotel school of customer relations, promised to despatch a technician to look into it.

Despite our great expectations, by the time we returned to the room that evening, nothing had changed. Next morning as we were checking out, I complained again about the lack of radio in the room – and even more so the lack of enthusiasm for doing something about it. Not good enough for a 5 star hotel, Hotel Hotel.

 

 

Peter Saxon

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