Hilbert's hOYOtel

We were down in SW England last week distributing, on the turning tide, the final ashy remains of my departed mother. She died in Jan 2020 just before Coronarama shut everything down for a couple of years, so it was only now that her descendants could get closure in an off-shore breeze. Team Ireland [self, Dau.I and Dau.II] flew in Monday evening and out again Wednesday morning, leaving all Tuesday for the obsequial logistics. That required two nights in a hotel and there is a convenient OYO establishment just downhill from The Boy's gaff, so he booked us two rooms for two nights there.

OYO is [comparatively] cheap because they run a tight ship: turning over a lot of the work to software. Because an app, once written and debugged, doesn't require a salary, holiday or employer's PRSI. If they could use a Roomba to make the beds and something from Boston Dynamics to cook a full English [as L] then I guess they would. When we got there on the first night, there was no concierge, no night manager. But we had been e-mailed six digit pass-codes to the front door and rooms 21 and 26. All good: we said g'night and agreed to do breakfast at 08:15 the next day. 

When I left home, I'd packed all my kit in a  small satchel, and it was handier to bring the whole caboodle along with me rather than deciding what I would need [abacus? binoculars? camera? derringer? ear-buds? fork? glasses?] for Tuesday's shenanigans. It had been a long day when we returned to the OYO just before 10pm. Because I R old, Dau.I helpfully coded up my door and flung it open for me to enter my bedroom. We found it occupied by two disconcerted randommers and their luggage. At least they were clothed. We retreated downstairs and phoned the 'manager' (whom we'd met briefly at breakfast 14 hours earlier) to sort things out. He came over "I'll be there in 7 minutes".

He started out with a <<TMI!>> explanation about how the software had, somehow, sent my door-code to the next booking for that room AND overlapped that booking with mine. He then apologised. I replied that the apology should have come first and I was frankly Scarlett about how his company had screwed up . . . just please to find me somewhere with clean sheets to sleep. These people should have been in room 22 please come with me to that room, it will be ready for you. Room 22 was in a different wing of the OYO . . . and occupied by a German called Braun, who should have been in room 31. I refused to go up two flights of stairs until the Manager had ascertained that it wasn't occupied by a flock of chickens. 

Math nerds will immediately think of Hilbert's Grand Hotel paradox which was central to ein gedankenexperiment elaborated by David Hilbert exactly 100 years ago in a lecture about Infinity: Über das Unendliche. Imagine a hotel with an infinite number of rooms, each occupied by a guest. Just before 10pm on a Tuesday, a weary traveller arrives seeking accommodation. The manager moves the occupant of room.1 to room.2, the person in room.2 to room.3 and so ad infinitum thus freeing up room.1 for another guest. And if the weary traveller is accompanied two daughters, they may be similarly found room at the infinite inn.

Several years ago, I wrote about Georg Cantor's elaboration on Hilbert's paradox where he proved that some infinities are bigger than others. Guests, rooms and unexpected occupants is a theme in the writings of Saki  . . .  The Lull - The Guests - The Unrest Cure.

It's a week now and I have had neither explanation nor apology [except sort of from the manager as above] nor compo from OYO. ⛥ for the sandstone Georgian Facade.