The difference is this:

The old BOSS, the Manchester BOSS wasn't afraid.

He had a bit of dignity, a set of moral's and principles and stuck to them, no matter if he was talking to an angry guest, a member of staff, a colleague or the Chairman himself.

The current BOSS is afraid.

Afraid of the teams at Head Office who interfere when they shouldn't.

He is their equal in terms of position and should realise that.

I hope he'll learn.

Else they will never treat him -or anybody else in the hotel -with respect.

G was tired last night.

He is working very had at the moment, late nights and weekends too.

Shit, if it ain't me, it's him.

Anyway, he came home last night shattered.

We had tickets for 'Erasure; and he was toying with the idea of not going.

But go we did.

And they were very good.

Just as camp and outragous as you would expect.

Andy Bell has an amazing voice, one that can fill the Albetr Hall.

It was just the change that G needed.

And that's good enough for me.

We bought a chair.

Last week we wondered along Tottenham Court, looking for a mirror.

The mirror we had was ok, but we wanted something a bit more daring, something a bit more contemporary.

We finally settled on a mirror spelt out of the words ''Vanity Kills''.

It's pretty cool.

While we were moseying around the furniture shops we saw two other things that we liked.

One was a giant anglepoise lamp, that stood about 7 feet tall.

It was just like one of those you find on the desks of draughtsmen, not too disimilar to the bouncy little guy at the beginning of the Pixar movies.

Anyway.

In one of the stores we saw a chair.

A Cole chair.

It was in the window in cream leather.

We briefly spoke about it and then came home.

This was on the Saturday.

On the Sunday we got the Sunday papers as usual.

I say 'we'..I meant 'G' got the Sunday papers while I went into work.

Normally he would get the papers while I snoozed away in bed.

In with the papers was a 20% off voucher for the furniture store.

The chair was over a thousand pounds but with the voucher it was under a thousand pounds.

So we decided.

We went along to the furniture shop on Saturday bought the chair.

But.

The important thing was it was our first big purchase together.

Yes, we have bought each other things over the last year, but we both fell in love with the chair.

So it arrives at the end of October.

After we come back from New York.

So, I'm a little stressed at the moment.

This was my first two days off since the hotel opended two weeks ago and I have done nothing but think about it.

Really.

We went to see 'Spamalot' yesterday afternoon and that was the only time I really forgot about the place.

Great show by the way, very funny, consistently funny.

I think a large portion of the stress that I am feeling is self inflicted.

If anything happens at the hotel I feel I should be there.

Even when I hear nothing, I call to see if everything is okay.

It'll get better.

Friday night I needed to stay at the hotel.

I had a new Night Manager and he was a little green to say the least, so I felt better being on site, in case anything should happen.

So I picked the Penthouse.

'natch.

I emailed G in the afternoon and he came to the hotel to join me.

We met outside the hotel on the terrace, watching the O2 Dome light across the River and then we retired to the room itself.

We had some room service, watched some tv on the big ol' B&O and then retired to teh bedroom for some well deserved boning.

G was up very early the next morning and before he snuggled up to my back and put his arms around me, gently waking me, he took a picture from the window of the dawn over the Thames.

It has been a hard bloody slog.

The hotel opened this week and we hit the ground running, we were full from the get go.

The first guest arrived early Monday morning, the hotel looked stunning, all glass and steel and granite.

The lobby, a huge glass atrium overlooking the Thames and the Dome looked fresh and ready, the Reception team looked smart and welcoming behind the huge Reception desk.

And we got a lot of things right that day, and we also made some bloody stupid dumb fuck mistakes.

Like having a full restaurant and no table numbers for the tables.

The FnB Manager walking around, like a lost soul unable to comprehend what was happening within his department that day.

He is a company veteran of some twenty years and I have to say, I lost a lot of respect for him.

The Chief Engineer going off duty without leaving any Engineers on duty to help the guest's with any problems in the new rooms.

People paying £400 plus for a suite and having no lightbulbs in the lamps.

And I can stand in front of any guest and listen paitently to their list of concerns and issues, and I can genuinely empathise.

I always put myself in their position and then react accordingly.

But I do get very frustrated with colleagues who are not professional enough to organise themselves and their department in advance of a guest arriving.

Opening a hotel is hard enough, with trying to bridge the gap between the expectation of the guest and the reality, we don't need to shoot ourselves in the foot before we have learnt to walk.