TRAVELS WITH TED

So, I looked up city breaks to Edinburgh: a couple of nights, a beautiful city to explore, a proper adventure, good food and very pleasant end-of-September weather.

Step 1. TripAdvisor. All looks good. Nope, too fancy, scroll down, hmm, looks okay. Too expensive, wait... £178 including the flight? That actually seems... reasonable...

Step 2. Wait though! Ah...that's for two people - great, it could be even cheaper. Just change that to 1, click and refresh and...

Step 3. Oh.

Same room, same flight, same weekend... it's now £273.

How does that work? How?

I'll tell you. To the tourist industry, two people are better than one.

Yep, they're looking for couples, people who've got friends, people who are cloudy-eyed with romance, or just cloudy enough, to actually want to travel and stay, with each other. Couples take up two spaces on a square table in the restaurant, they spend twice as much in the city on museums, on entry-fees and on everything else they want to do. These are the people they want in their hotels, not you.

Two are better than one. Got it? Got the message?

Yeah that's right. They're better than you, all you singletons. They've succeeded, or at least half-succeeded in finding love and fulfilling their genetic responsibility to the human race. These are the grownups, the mature people who know how life ought to be lived and have been successful at it so far. Oh and if you want to do what they do, guess what, it's going to cost you. Ha! And that's the price you pay for not finding anybody who likes you, you pathetic bunch of losers.

Ahem.

Excuse me.

Not sure where all that came from. Of course, it does seem highly unfair. It's a bit like picking up a 60p loaf of bread in the supermarket and then finding out it costs you £1.60 because you're wearing a hat. It is a discriminatory tax system that reinforces a message which single people are already all too aware of, and it sucks. I understand why they do it of course.

There is another solution...

I could just take a teddy bear with me.

"Excuse me sir, is this seat taken?"

"Yep."

"O... kay then."

"So, that's a room for two then sir, and will you both be requiring breakfast?"

"Oh I expect so. There is honey on the menu isn't there?"

Don't worry, I'm not going to Scotland with a teddy, although the photo-montage that follows would be hilarious. I haven't completely flipped. I am going to look for alternatives though - who knows - AirBnB? Youth hostel?

I just resent the single-supplement reminding me that the world doesn't think of me as a grownup.

Perhaps in an ironic way, Travels with Ted would illuminate this whole point to a string of concierges, managers and hotel receptionists?

Or maybe I'll just keep looking.