Expensive British Hotels (typically the Country House hotels / halls) that run out of basic things at Breakfast and substitute items and hope you won't notice.

A few weeks back at a hotel commanding about £200 a night we each paid £16 for breakfast - having a bit of a hangover I went for the full cooked English Breakfast (items were listed)

The meal came with two tomatoes and no beans, and two rashers of bacon and no sausage - do you think I won't notice - when I queried whether I'd been given the wrong breakfast I was told that chef had run out of sausages and beans so they had made some subsitutions.

Only in England can a hotel charge you £16 for breakfast and then run out of the basic ingrediants at 8am on a Wednesday Morning - and then look at you as you are stupid when you suggest that, as it was only 8am, and there are probably other diners yet to come, someone should run out to the nearest corner shop (about 1/4 mile away) and top up with what I thought were basic provisions.

A colleague of mine, later told me he had to wait 15 minutes to place an order for his breakfast (there are only 30 rooms at the hotel!)- he asked for the Full Breakfast without Black Pudding - Guess what he got as his mystery substituion for the lack of Sausage and Beans - Tomatoes and ......... Black pudding

"it's not as though I ordered an elephants foot in a bun"

The same hotel that when I went down to Reception at 7.30am and said that the shower in my room was delivering no hot water I was told "oh I am sorry" - that's it, no offer to use another room, no offer of someone to come up and fix it - when I queried this i was offered a fuller explanation "the engineer wouldn't get here before 10am, sorry"

Rant over