Major Gowen: "A room with a view, please, Fawlty!"

Major Gowen, played by Ballard Berkeley, in Fawlty Towers was a bumbling, quintessential stiff upper lipped English gentleman. And proud of it! Well known for his distrust of foreigners in general, and Germans in particular, he could always be found wandering about Fawlty Towers enquiring if the newspapers had arrived yet. The only thing more important to Major Gowen than the arrival of the newspapers to keep himself abreast of the cricket scores was the opening of the bar. This was an era with less liberal licensing hours than can be enjoyed in England today.

“We loved this guy who was in his own world. He never quite understood what was going on, but always added his own interpretation of it.” — John Cleese.

For some reason or another I feel like being at Fawlty Towers when staying at our hotel in Cumbria. It's a nice place with friendly and customer-focussed people, but...

An example: [After dinner's main course] "We'd like to order some sweets now please?" "Certainly, I'll be just a moment and get back to you with the daily specials" After several minutes, she returns and says: "We're not serving sweets anymore, the chef's gone home." [bear in mind that it's only 9 o'clock in the evening]

Another one: [Just after midnight, my colleagues telephone rings him out of his sleep] "Yes?" "Oh hello, I'm just calling to tell you that your colleague hasn't arrived yet" "Right, thank you madam and good night" [In this case one of us was coming in late, struggling his way through bad weather with barely any view due to heavy rain, therefore arriving later than the receptionist intended to stay at her desk]