The Third Leader: Room with a view

Sometimes it can be testing, maintaining the enthusiastic, open outlook which distinguishes this newspaper and this space in particular. Still reeling from the news that many journalists are writing their own Wiki entries, I now read that some of the purportedly independent online reviews of hotels are not as they seem.

Well, as they say in the north country, I'll go to the foot of our stairs. I haven't been so shocked since someone told me the chaps with the graphs and white coats in the old soap powder adverts might not actually be scientists. Apart from when I learnt that the "..." following "fantastic" in reviews quoted by theatres sometimes concealed "-ally bad" or ", if you're a bugger for punishment".

Whenever I've tried choosing online, I've usually found a litany of complaint, often from our fastidious transatlantic cousins, on the review sites, matched by some entertaining codes on the hotel sites involving "intimate", "friendly", "lively", "picturesque", "traditional", "our chef", "postage stamp", "thin walls", "cement mixer", "unmade goat-track" "plumbing", and "microwave".

In any case, in this risk-averse age, one of the last challenges is finding your hotel, there, behind that really nice one, trying to work out how they took the publicity picture, attracting the attention of the steely-eyed receptionist, learning that they stop serving breakfast at eight and lock the front door at 11, and attempting to move at the same time in the bedroom.

We say: don't kill all that with over-research; not only might you not want to go home, but you'll have nothing to talk about while you're there, either.