Last night I was working at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole and had been booked into another hotel nearby. When the event finished one of the crew offered me a lift back to the hotel. Getting into his car he got his sat nav out of the glove compartment and said “I don’t know what I’d do without this” – a comment he would come to regret!

He punched in the postcode we had been given and off we went. The Sat Nav directed us to turn left onto the A45 and then onto the M42 before sending us onto the M6. At this point we became concerned that something was amiss! Anyway we ended up in Birmingham City Centre before it directed us back onto a road which headed back towards the NEC. After a while it announced that we had reached our destination just as we arrived at the road ahead closed sign – but there was still no sign of a hotel!

I got my phone out of my pocket and punched in the name of the hotel and it revealed we were now 7 miles from the hotel so we followed the directions and ended up at the Arden hotel which turned out to be next to the NEC and if we had turned right (instead of left) onto the A45 would have found it in minutes!

I can’t be too smug though as the reason I had accepted the lift was that when I punched in the details of the hotel and asked for walking directions my phone told me initially 2hrs and then 1hr and directed me in a circular route. However as I found out this morning the hotel was a 5 minute walk from Birmingham International which itself is only a 10 minute walk from the Metropole. So I could have walked there in 15 to 20 minutes instead of the half hour we spent doing a round trip via spaghetti junction!

Bring back maps!