Heading downtown...

Today, as I planned to walk from my hotel to the Music City Convention Centre in downtown Nashville, I heard there had been a homicide on Friday in the early hours of the morning. An international traveller had been stabbed in the head and was robbed of his iphone. The police did take a man into custody, according to a news report. I'm guessing that, in the UK, the newspapers would probably have used that well-worn phrase "no arrests have been made" but this isn't the UK, it's the USA and, credit where credit's due, there's always a strong police presence, which is reassuring to the general public, especially after a murder has taken place.

My hotel, the Moxy (see previous article) is a fair way from the convention centre where I was due to meet my colleague and, sadly, for the Moxy, more disparaging stories from the hotel without wardrobes. I was advised to take a cab or an Uber and avoid any possible incident with Nashville ne'er do wells. Unfortunately, my Uber app, which is rarely used, didn't seem to work so I asked the receptionist if she could call me a cab. "You're a cab," she said...alright, she didn't say anything of the sort, that was my little joke. But what she did say was, "We have a cab company, sir, but they never turn up if we call them." It's not what you want to hear, is it? The hotel has a cab company, but when anybody calls them they don't bother turning up. What kind of a cab company does that and what sort of hotel allows the situation to fester and become so commonplace that the receptionist on the 'front desk' openly tells customers that it's really not worth booking a cab as they never bother to turn up. 

Well, I'd better face up to facts and hit the mean streets of Nashville and just hope I'm not accosted by an axe-wielding nutter. I started to walk along a street that would become (if it wasn't already) Broadway. A few yards into my journey I thought I'd download the Uber app as my one wasn't working properly. Perhaps I'd find somewhere with free wifi as I don't want to be charged a fortune by the phone company. So I darted into a coffee shop called something like Badass Coffee, ordered a tea (I don't like availing myself of the services of a foodservice operator without in some way giving them business) and sat down with a view to getting the app installed on my phone. There's a little notice on the service counter with the wifi password on it so I keyed it into my phone only to discover that it didn't work and I really couldn't face any kind of engagement with the counter assistant so I decided (again) to continue with my walk. "Just checking, but is it safe to walk into downtown from here?" I finally asked. "Yes, it is. All is fine during the daylight hours, but I wouldn't do it at night," she said and I realised that Nashville is just like anywhere else. Walk around late at night or in the early hours and basically you're asking for trouble. So I resolved to continue with my journey, but first, as I'd been drinking tea all morning – I had around three cups in Biscuit Love and another one here in this Badass coffee joint – I thought it best to answer the call of nature and not later find myself trying to walk cross-legged or, worse still, having to dart behind a tree or bush to take a leak.

I walked towards the passageway that would lead me to the restrooms (as they say politely here in North America – in the UK it would be 'the bogs'). When I reached the door there was a keypad affixed to it, meaning I would have to go back to the service counter and ask for the password (how humiliating!). When I got there the girl behind the counter recited a list of numbers and added 'plus pound'. Plus pound? She didn't really elaborate and when I got back to the door of the restroom I couldn't see any £ sign and had to return to the counter. "You mean the hash tag?" And that was just what she meant, the door opened, I answered the call of nature and I was ready to continue my walk through the mean streets of Nashville. Except that they weren't at all mean. I had no troublesome encounters whatsoever and reached my ultimate destination (the convention centre) without incident.

I was, however, simply amazed that stuff wasn't working: my Uber app (which I later successfully uploaded) then the password for the Badass coffee shop's wifi and then the toilet door confusion over whether the push-button code had a £ sign or a hashtag. 

What was great about today (Sunday) was Nashville's Gibson Garage, a shop full of expensive Gibson and Epiphone electric (and acoustic) guitars. I can't play a note and nor can my colleague so we decided not to be imposters by buying a Gibson tee-shirt and instead walked to an area of Nashville called The Gulch where we found a fantastic English pub. I ordered a burger and fries, my colleague opted for a shepherd's pie, both very tasty, and then we continued to swan around the downtown, merging with the merry folk of Nashville. I remembered a cartoon I used to watch as a kid and a horse called Quick Draw McGraw who used to hit his enemies over the head with an acoustic guitar. That's it, I thought. I don't need to pack a piece, all I need is buy an expensive Gibson Les Paul and if anybody should dare to steal my iphone I could shout "El Kabong!" and land my guitar squarely on the head of the robber. The problem, of course, is that I might end up seriously hurting the bad guy – or perhaps the 'badass' – and then find myself in the slammer or, even worse, on Death Row, my feet shackled as I make my way to the visitor window where, with the help of a Bakelite telephone receiver, I can talk to my family from the other side of some heavy duty plexiglass or whatever it is they use to separate prisoner and visitor.

For Moxy read Poxy – in Nashville, Tennessee...

Well, it's day one, perhaps I'm a little lagged, who knows, although I managed to get a fair amount of sleep last night, waking around 0200hrs but getting off to sleep a couple hours later so I feel pretty okay. The problem with the Moxy, let's make that plural, the PROBLEMS with the Moxy are as follows: first, it's trying its best to be 'quirky' – never a good thing to try being quirky, you either are or you're not in my opinion, a bit like 'cult'movies, and I think the best example of quirky is the Ace Hotel in Portland, Oregon, a great place that I don't think has been equalled by any 'boutique' hotel that has followed.

On arrival at Nashville airport...

The Moxy is playing the role of 'student digs' with pool table and foose ball and darts and a square bar where everything goes on, it's an area that you encounter on entering the hotel because, yes, you've guessed it, the bar is also the reception area (wow! that's off the wall!) and the person who checks you in is likely to be making up your pizza later in the evening. And while we're on the subject of food, it ain't good here. The menu is limted, there's a bar top grill machine of sorts that really only makes pizza-like products, nothing at all healthy about it. In fact, last night I had "chicken, bacon and ranch" and, while it was sort of okay, it was nothing to write home about. I didn't particularly want a pizza for dinner but that was effectively all there was and what I got, that and a bottle of Perrier (and I had to ask for the glass).

Room 406, Moxy Vanderbilt hotel...no desk or wardrobe!

So, this morning (it's now Sunday, I flew in here last night on a direct BA flight from London, it was great and because of that there's little to write about, there was no turbulence, it was smooth all the way and took around nine hours, that flew by) I even considered breakfast this morning until I realised that the aforementioned limited menu is basically anything that can be cooked in this kind of grill over on the bar top. Also, when I tried to order the woman behind the bar ignored me completely so I used that as a reason not to have breakfast at the hotel but instead to go to Biscuit Love across the street. Avid readers will remember the Brekkie Shack in Columbus, Ohio, one year ago today. Well, it's kind of like that. I ordered an amazing omelette plus a large mug of tea AND one of their famed 'biscuits' which ain't a biscuit at all, more a kind of pastry, a cross between a scone and something a little more fragile, like filo pastry, served with butter and strawberry jam. The whole thing was great and as I walked in they were playing Stevie Wonder's Living for the City, arguably one of the best songs in the world, but it wasn't the longer album version, which is by far the best, "New Yarrrrrk! Just like I pictured it, skyscrapers an' everythang!"

The shower in room 406...very good!

After breakfast I was feeling elated and wandered down to a row of local shops, boutiques and more breakfast establishments. Clearly everybody knows there's no point in having breakfast at The Moxy because, in a nutshell, it's POXY! I think I'll be back in Biscuit Love tomorrow morning for another huge breakfast.

So, back to the hotel: there's no wardrobe and, wait for it, no desk! No desk! In a hotel room! I'm guessing that when the guys at Marriott Bonvoy sat down to work out the Moxy concept they thought, "Hey, let's get a student vibe going here, how about no wardrobes in the rooms and no desks, and hey, that'll bring the true meaning of the word 'laptop' into play." Well, it's not great I can tell you. I've got (as always in American hotels) two huge double beds and a load of unused space where they could quite easily have put a desk. It's really annoying to discover that my hotel for the next SIX nights has no desk or wardrobe. Instead of the latter they have hangers on the wall on wooden hooks that protrude from the wall and now, if you were in my room (or anybody else's for that matter) you'd see a row of shirts and trousers and a suit hanging from the wall. I'm sure that I'm going to wake up in the middle of the night and think there are other people in the room, like I did once in a 'boutique' hotel in Didsbury near Manchester in the UK, some years ago. On that occasion I forgot all about the mannequin in the room, on which I draped my coat. I then woke up in the middle of the night thinking there was somebody standing at the foot of my bed. Frightening...until I remembered.

Inside Biscuit Love...the best breakfasts in town

So right now I'm downstairs in what we should refer to as the 'common room' – my nam, not there's – there's music blaring, which is absolutely fine and, to be fair, the vibe is good, but a hotel with crap food, no wardrobes and no desk...no DESK! is unforgiveable. It means that I have to trampse down here just to use my laptop OR take full advance of the fact that it's a 'laptop' and balance it on my (ahem) lap. It's not cricket, put it that way.

The best breakfast in town...

The weather here in Nashville is a bit poor. It's cloudy and damp and my iphone weather app says 'no results found for Nashville'. I don't believe that for a start, but who am I to argue with a phone that's supposed to be 'smart'?

I can hear the clack of pool balls over on the other side of the common room, people seem pretty relaxed and on one level it's fine, but on others it's not fine at all. You know that thing about survival and people saying that if they're down on their luck, homeless or without money for food they'll end up stealing it if they have to? Well, that's how I felt this morning. Okay, it would be hard to steal a wardrobe, but coathangers maybe. So I stole some, from the 'stash' area. All floors here have a stash area where guests can use an ironing board and do stuff of that nature. I suddenly envisaged somebody standing there in there underpants pressing a pair of trousers and oblivious people around them taking no notice or perhaps complaining and the police being called and, well, that would be the end of the 'stash' area, I thought.

I'm guessing people buy into this Moxy concept. I mean it's a bed for the night. I asked two guys travelling down in the lift with me what they thought of the no wardrobe/no desk scenario and they didn't have a problem with it. One of them even said he liked the coathangers on the wall set-up, but then he was a young guy of around 20 who is probably used to finding slices of pizza on the carpet and other 'student lifestyle' statements. The older guy seemed baffled by my question and also didn't appear to have a problem. So it's just me. Well, what can I say? It normally is just me.

View from room 406, Moxy Vanderbilt Hotel, Nashville

Is anything good about Moxy? How about the shower, that's okay. A rain shower and loads of space inside the rectangular cubicle, meaning I can switch the thing on without getting wet and, therefore, get the temperate right before jumping in. Not that I 'jump' into showers, I normally walk, I step in. So that's good. What other positives? Actually, none.