It’s grotesque! I hate this hotel!” says Sir John Richardson as I enter a fourth-floor suite giving on to a sweeping vista of the Thames and the London Eye. “I’m in my 90th year but this place makes me feel 100.”

Dressed in a grey jacket with dashing crimson border, cream shirt, black slacks and bright red slippers, the writer shuffles disconsolately around the huge living room. He can work neither the light switches nor the telephone at the five-star Corinthia Hotel, which means he has not been able to order breakfast. His boyfriend, a former footman at Buckingham Palace and “a hero”, normally looks after these things but he has gone out.
***
There is a knock at the door; a trolley laid with a white tablecloth and piled high with bowls of fruit, viennoiserie and two towering flasks of freshly squeezed orange juice is wheeled in. I quickly offer a credit card to pay – FT rules insist – before the meal is assigned to room service. Richardson leaps to compete, wielding a tenner to supplement the tip. He leads me to the spread, offers to pour tea, removes the bananas for safekeeping to another table, and nibbles a croissant.
***
We move to the fruit: an all-seasons platter of blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, pineapple, grapes and three sorts of melon.
***
Corinthia Hotel

10 Whitehall Place, London

Fruit platters x2 £22.00

Croissants x4 £16.00

Fresh orange juice x2 £10.00

Tea x2 £11.00

Total (incl service) £64.13