• AT 3pm on December 10, when I walked past the bar at the back of the Standard Hotel opposite King’s Cross, all of the 10 electric heaters were on, heating the air, while the bar was empty.

When I passed at 10.45 that evening, the heaters were still on, plus the pretend log fire. At that time there was one couple in the bar.

In the week when the need to cut down on energy misuse to halt climate change is being discussed at the United Nations in Madrid, shouldn’t luxury hotels and bars be doing their bit?

Couldn’t the Standard install movement sensors that turn the heaters on when people are using the bar?

Or, better still, set a trend and provide blankets, as they have for years in Finland, for people who want to drink outside in winter?

DAPHNE DAVIES
Address supplied