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Want free WiFi? Avoid One Aldwych! Go to Hoxton Hotel...

I'm sitting in an Internet cafe; and my PC is playing loud music, which is irritating me, and everybody around me. It's my own fault: I picked the venue. Time was when I'd arrange to meet business contacts at One Aldwych because although the tea and coffee was absurdly high priced at three quid a cup, you could just log on and surf. Well, no longer. Meet me at the Hoxton Hotel, instead.

It's not just the arm-and-leg price of the WiFi that's got under my skin, and it's not the ridiculous ambiguous Liberty login system, either though, I'll admit, having to work out if the code is a zero or a letter 'O' is vexing... no, it's the fact that the first thing that you get when you've logged in is a movie download.

Yes, the wretched thing makes you pay to read their advertising! And it turns your PC speaker on, and plays loudly; and when it gets to the end of the tune, it stops, and re-loads the movie and the music and STARTS AGAIN!

Yes, I could turn it off. I'm not going to. I'm going to sit here with the music blaring until the staff ask me to turn it off, and then I'm going to SHOUT AT THEM!

By contrast, I found the Hoxton Hotel both more convenient for the City (financial district) and rather more comfortable, and the WiFi was genuinely free.