Paul Carr - The Upgrade: A Cautionary Tale of a Life Without Reservations

I dont notice the man in the grey suit taking my bag.

I mean, I do notice him but in his smart grey Savile Row suit and his patent leather shoes, he looks just like any other hotel guest. Im dimly aware of him gliding past me as Im signing the guest register but, by the time I turn around, hes gone. And, with him, my bag.

A professional.

I smile.

The receptionist hands me back my debit card, having preauthorised it for any incidentals I might incur during my stay. In other hotels they take as much as two or three hundred pounds. But the Lanesborough the most expensive hotel in London has just swiped a grand from my current account, just in case.

Given the cost of a room at the hotel, the pre-authorisation wasnt too outrageous. The standard or rack rate for my suite is a little over 800 a night. I do the mental maths. 6000 a week. 312,000 a year. Plus tax and gratuities, of course. No wonder the Lanesborough is one of the few hotels in the world where they dont charge you extra for the in-room pornography.

Another thing they dont charge for is your butler. Mine is called Marcus and hes entirely at my disposal during my stay. If I need a copy of The Times or a pot of tea, Marcus will fetch it. If I should suddenly desire a Dalmatian puppy, painted green, Marcus will paint it. Marcus will do anything I ask him to do, providing its legal. Hell also do lots of things that I havent asked him to; hence my disappearing bag.

Room 237. I slide my key into the electronic lock, and once the hotels elaborate security system is satisfied that Im me tick, tick, beep the door swings open. I smile again. In the few minutes it took for the receptionist to electronically cut me a spare room key its cheesy as hell, but girls love being given their own key Marcus has been hard at work.

My clothes are hanging in the walk-in wardrobe, except for a creased shirt that hes taken to be pressed, ahead of tonights party. My razor and toothbrush have been removed from my overnight bag and placed on a little folded towel next to the sink. The book that was stuffed into the back pocket of my laptop bag is now on the table next to the gigantic bed with a bookmark placed where Id folded down the corner of the page. My laptop is on the desk in the living room.

The living room. On the table sits an ice bucket and two half-bottles of champagne, compliments of the manager. Perfect. Theres an unexpected touch, too: a dark chocolate cake with a message piped in thick white icing.

Happy 30th Birthday.

Aww. Sweet.

I sit down in one of the two leather armchairs and tear open the envelope that had been waiting for me at reception, but, before I can remove the card inside, theres a knock at the door.

I know it isnt Marcus Id been careful to flip the Do Not Disturb switch as I walked through the door. After ten hours on a plane I need to get some sleep. In a few hours Im heading to Adam Street my club, just off the Strand for my birthday party. Its going to be a long night; especially if the girl Ive invited to fly in from Italy shows up. She better had, given all the trouble Marcus is taking to press my shirt. Thats going to cost me a twenty-quid tip.

Another knock.

What? I shout through the door.

Open the fucking door, you twat.

I do and before its even fully open Im grabbed by two enormous arms and pulled into a crushing bear hug.

Happy birthday, darling!

Robert! Thank you so much, I gasp. Broken ribs. Really, you shouldnt have. I force myself out of his grip. How did you know which room I was in?

Your butler sent me up but I wrote down your room number wrong. I just nearly barged in on some Arab guy and what looked suspiciously like a hooker. He paused. More importantly you have a fucking butler. Another pause. Congratulations. Your life is officially ridiculous.

Robert Loch knows all about ridiculous. This is, after all, the man who the Financial Times of all papers once called the Hugh Hefner of London after he rented a penthouse in Leicester Square and spent a whole year sitting in his rooftop hot tub, seducing Brazilian models and Russian ballerinas while building his latest online business.

And yet, right now, as he looks around my room, at the antique furniture and the fully stocked bar and the television full of free porn rising from the top of the bureau at the touch of a button, there is no mistaking the look in Roberts eyes.

Envy.

Envy for me a loser who, less than two years earlier, had lost everything: my business, the love of my life and my home. Me, who has been fired from every job Ive ever had, including two where I was technically my own boss. Me, whose only marketable skill is an ability to humiliate myself in ever more creative and entertaining ways.

And now here I am. My weekly outgoings arent any more than they were two years ago probably less, adjusted for inflation and yet now I have my pick of fully-staffed accommodation in every major city on earth, a fleet of luxury cars at my disposal night and day and year-round access to a villa in the Spanish mountains, with more of the same across most of Europe.

I arrived at the Lanesborough in a limousine from Heathrow, after flying in from San Francisco. The previous evening Id been out on a date with a pretty blonde journalist called Charlotte who wanted to profile me for some magazine or other. After dinner and drinks, wed ended up back at my hotel with a girl wed met in the bar. My real birthday celebration, though, is tonight at Adam Street, surrounded by nearly a hundred of my closest friends.

Then, tomorrow morning, while those same friends drag themselves bleary-eyed back to their desks and the forty-hour week that allows them to afford their exorbitant London rents, Ill hop on the Eurostar to Paris where I plan to complete my entire weeks work in less than two hours, sitting in a caf on the Champs-Elyses, eating foie gras and watching pretty French girls go by.

For me, this isnt a break from the pressures of my normal, everyday life a nice birthday treat before returning to the rat race. This is my normal, everyday life. And its all because of my membership of a very unusual club. A club with no joining fees and where anyone is welcome even losers like me. All I had to do was to make one simple, life-changing decision.

What follows is the story of how I made that decision. Its a story of fast cars and Hollywood actresses; of Icelandic rock stars and six-thousand-mile booty calls. Its a story of eight hundred female hairdressers dressed only in bedsheets. Its a story of nights spent in prison cells; of jumping out of cars being driven by Spanish drug dealers and of trying to have sex with a girl knowing theres a dead woman in my wardrobe. And, more than anything else, its a story of booze.