There are relatively few times when you head off with a trolley bag on a Monday morning that you're heading to a glamorous destination. Given the time of departure, it's usually work. More often than not, you'll only ever see the inside of a meeting room.
What then to be stuck by a business park inside a hotel in Reading for a 3-day meeting, whilst the last of the British summer blazes outside at 29 degrees? There's no escape from a Kennet island hotel, although whether or not its island status is defined by the River Kennet or the dual carriageway of the A33 is debatable.
That said, for the observant among us, the hotel's location in the M4 corridor, close to Heathrow Airport and astride Reading's concentration of global technology companies in Green Park offers a fascinating snapshot of what drives the modern economy. The besuited manager interviewing a fresh-faced job candidate over coffee, the prevalence of foreign accents at the bar and in the elevator, the company names on meeting room doors in the business suite, the laptop computers on every table. Transient human relationships arranged around the availability of car parking and taxis. This is Reading, but this could be anywhere.
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