Taking care of business on the road

The Herald's motoring editor, ALASTAIR SLOANE, travels at least six times a year to Australia, Asia and Europe and has to file copy against tight deadlines from each destination.

It happened again on a cold evening in Britain a couple of weeks ago, about 6 am New Zealand time. The receptionist at the Birmingham hotel said the business centre was open but the sole computer wasn't working.

"Well, not quite," said her colleague. "The computer is working, but you can't e-mail or get on to the internet."

My battery-powered typewriter had run out of ink halfway through a story I had to fax to the Herald.

"Does the printer work?" I asked. "If the printer works I can retype the story and fax it."

"Don't know," said the first woman. "One of the men will be here soon to help you."

The second woman noticed my anxiety: "You can go into the business centre and wait for him. I'll tell him you're there."

The business centre was a modest office, with a handful of swivel chairs and a single centre light. The computer sat on a tablecloth, on a long bench in front of a plateglass window. In front of the computer was an executive-type chair with a wind-up centre stem. Something was broken, because the chair wouldn't wind up to working height and it tipped backwards.

I piled cushions on to it and sat upright, as the health and safety people demand, at a comfortable height and distance from the keyboard.

"The internet doesn't work on that computer, you know," said the hotel man, bursting through the door. I swivelled to greet him and the chair dumped me on the floor. He chuckled, then apologised. "Don't know what's wrong with it. Not the chair, the computer. But I think I can get the printer going."

He did. I retyped and faxed the words and next morning made my way back to London and a flight to Malaga, Spain, and another hotel business centre.

The hiccup in Birmingham was nothing new. That's the thing about business centres in hotels - many are makeshift. Staff are helpful and polite, but often they don't know much about computers. Airport business centres are generally first class, with the latest equipment.

In the business centre of a German hotel a few years ago it was a problem with modems, the computer bit that transmits data. I didn't know much about modems and business centres then and still carried a portable typewriter.

An Australian journalist, a former colleague, was cradling a laptop under one arm and swinging a cord with the other.

"Bloody business centre," he said. "Something about their modems not working with our laptops. I have to wait until the shops open tomorrow to get an attachment. Could I borrow your typewriter when you've finished?"

In the business centre of a Spanish hotel, near Juarez, where the sherry comes from, the "thingamajig that hooks into the computer's what's-its-name" wasn't working, said a porter. The hotel was waiting for a computer fix-it man to turn up.

This time I had a laptop computer for such emergencies. It was bound with duct-tape to keep it from falling apart and its battery was permanently flat, but it worked.

Or it did until I kicked the cord out at 1 am Spanish time when the hotel's peacock peaked through the open door leading to the balcony outside my room and shrieked like a thousand banshees.

The electrical current converter attached to the plug must have taken fright, too, because the keyboard thereafter was live.

A thousand or so words later, I had received a thousand or so mild shocks. At 3 am Spanish time I was charged and ready to party. The laptop was retired.

In a Queensland hotel last October I asked to use the business centre.

"You'll have to queue up," said the woman at reception. "It won't be free for another two hours or so. There is only one computer, you see." It was 5.30 pm.

About six hours later I settled for a snack at the bar. The dinner I was supposed to attend was long gone but I had e-mailed the words the Herald needed.

In Malaga, the hotel's business centre - a temporary one - had three computers, each one in its own booth. I settled down to start 600 words when I looked closely at the keyboard. It was German. The Y wasn't in its usual place. Nor was the Z. Nor were many other letters. The "quote/unquote" key typed something strange indeed.

Two hours later, after hunting and pecking at the keyboard, the story was e-mailed. Later, on my way to dinner, an Irish journo I had met earlier was sitting in a bar working on a fancypants laptop and fiddling with a fancypants cellphone.

"Give me a minute, Al, and I'll join you. I just need to send my story."

I watched him e-mail his stuff and phone his office to confirm the story was on its way.

"Obviously you don't bother with business centres," I said.

"Never do - awful places, business centres. Haven't used one for years, ever since a hotel computer swallowed one of my stories. We never did find it."