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Hoteliers and headwaiters see another side of Fielding. "Let's see," he said, as he sat down with the assistant manager of Brown's last month (the hotel had hired a new manager, but he was not yet on the job). "In our current Guide, we rate your hotel No. 11 in London." The assistant manager winced. Fielding imperturbably went on to read aloud his full printed report on Brown's: "a standby of the elderly," "generally (not always) comfortable," with some rooms that "are horribly cramped and inadequate." Included was a typical Fielding tip: "One infuriated Guidester warns that every voyager should always check against being short-changed in the dining room here. (In fairness, we gave it a test on our latest Brown's Derby, and our bill was impeccable.)" At that, the assistant manager unbent. "You imply we are a bunch of rogues!" he stormed. "You say one thing and then the other. It seems to me you could have saved the space."
His annoyance did not keep him from giving Fielding a full hour's top-to-bottom guided tour of the premises. Trailing along behind the hotelier, Fielding kept up a steady and reassuring patter: "Hmm, new paintwork there, very good . . . Oh, I see you've installed 110 volts A.C.—that's fine"—meanwhile running his hand along the tops of doors to see if they had been dusted. Entering one room, he pointed to the bed, asked "Do you mind?" and flopped onto it, carefully keeping his feet raised to avoid getting black shoe polish on the spread. In a bathroom, he climbed into the tub, fully clothed, to test its leg room, then turned on the shower—soaking his jacket in the process.
The rooms that drew Fielding's closest scrutiny were the inside singles, known in the trade as "the mother-in-law rooms." They are, he explains, "the lowest common denominator. You learn a lot about the hotel from just a glance at them." Tour over, Fielding cordially thanked the assistant manager, ducked back outside to his car. "Let's do the usual, Mac," he told the chauffeur, who promptly drove around the corner and parked. Fielding pulled out a notebook and began scribbling away: "Concierge with hotel 43 years. Many improvements under way. When manager arrives, fireworks are expected." Tucking the notebook into his briefcase, he confided: "Notes are the most precious things. We have nightmares about losing them."
Temple Fielding has been called "a modern Baedeker." The description fits only in the sense that Karl Baedeker dominated the guidebook field during the mid-1800s, just as Fielding does today. For kings and governments may err,/ But never Mr. Baedeker, wrote Poet A. P. Herbert. Stolid and scholarly, an indefatigable wanderer and meticulous researcher, Baedeker was the first guidebook writer to rate hotels and restaurants with a star system (similar to that employed by France's Michelin guides today); he was also a culture demon who directed his readers to every landmark and royal pigeon roost.
Fielding practically ignores sightseeing: he dismisses the Louvre in five lines, the Prado in six, and his main reaction to Roman ruins is that "there's a permanency about the