The Russell Hotel is a large, imposing, renaissance style hotel located, yup you guessed it, just opposite Russell Square in London (imaginative these hoteliers eh!).

First impressions were definitely good. The hotel is absolutely huge, and looks very impressive on the way in. You go up several steps, past the doorman into a fabulous foyer/lobby/entrance hall (please let me know what these things are supposed to be called, I'm so confused!). There is lots of marble, lots of plants, lots of gold (or gold paint...) and most surprising of all, lots of staff. I've stayed in quite a few hotels recently, and it never ceases to amaze me how few people are actually manning reception at the busiest time of the day, around 6pm when grumpy, tired people arriving on business trips check in. I've had some nightmares where it's taken over 30 minutes of queuing just to get to speak to a receptionist, let alone argue about whether you have a reservation and finally get a key to your room. On this occasion, check-in was pretty flawless, no queue, friendly, pleasant staff, and they even found my reservation details, no mean feat when compared to some other hotels I can assure you.

I was then pleasantly surprised not once but twice in the space of a few seconds, and I don't normally surprise easily. Not only did I have a room within 10 metres of the lift, the sign posts for room numbers were actually clear to follow, so I didn't take an unplanned tour of the hotel, including kitchens (don't laugh, it has been known on my travels) and managed to reach my room without incident.

The room had all the conveniences you would expect from a 4- star hotel, safe, iron, trouser press, TV, high speed internet (more of that later!), loads of toiletries to restock my home bathroom, air con and the essential Gideon bible. The room was clean, well decorated (all dark wood and reds, a bit glum for my tastes but a good change from the beige, beige beige at home!) and most importantly of all, smelt OK (you might think this is not worth commenting on, but I stayed at a hotel in Blackpool recently where, when you flushed the toilet, you could see water bubbling up through the bottom of the shower, and the smell reflected where I though that water might have been coming from, yuck!)

So, the room and showers are OK, what about the rest. Let's start with the next most important thing on any stay, food. The Russell suffers in the same way that all city centre hotels suffer, and that is price. I mean £22 for an English breakfast, not even Turpin himself got away with such robbery. I know my company is paying, but it's still absolutely disgraceful that a hotel will charge such exorbitant prices for what is essentially a hot buffet. As it happens, these aren't always even hot, although in the Russell's case this was true. So, breakfast was as you would expect, lots of it, normally hot, but not exactly cordon bleu, let's face it, how far wrong can you go with bacon and eggs? Staff were pretty attentive so overall not bad. I'd like to comment on the restaurant for evening meals, but I normally find hotel food mediocre and overpriced and could not bring myself to sample the Russell's fare. For what it's worth, the menu looked tempting but at £8 for a starter and £17 for a main, I wasn't going to get many glasses of wine from my expense budget, so I took myself somewhere cheaper each night. Again, you'll just have to try for yourself and see if you like it. I know this is a review but you can't expect me to find out everything for you, oh you do, erm, oh bug^&r.

Location is pretty good, you're about 10 minutes walk from Euston, 20 minutes from the Strand, and there is a tube station right around the corner. You're not in the middle of touristville or the City, but both are within reasonably easy reach.

Anything else? Well, there's no gym which is a bit of a disappointment, but in compensation there is a very pleasant, gentleman's club style bar, lots of leather seats and cognac. Very easy to while away a few late evening hours on the odd nightcap, no wonder I need those showers in the morning.