Even the pale-leather-bound volumes in the hotel library are carefully arranged in a pyramid

Even the pale-leather-bound volumes in the hotel library are carefully arranged in a pyramid. What happens if you move one? Another of Mr Ypma's selections, an arty joint in Basel called Der Teufelhof, prevents guests succumbing to this temptation by cementing the books on to the library shelves.Not every hip hostelry aims for such Zen-like minimalism. In fact, the Hempel looks so white and pure that only ghosts could stay there without leaving a blemish, while the proprietrix is described as "bordering on the fanatical in her attention to detail". "The place is in a bit of a two-and-eight, but as long as you're comfy, that's the main thing." Ah, if only... I suppose this is his way of hinting that you require an expense account to stay in them. One of the four London hotels he singles out is the Hempel (rooms from pounds 175 per night, suites from pounds 350), modestly titled after its designer-owner, Anouska Hempel, otherwise Lady Weinberg. "You'll have to take us as you find us," says Lady W, her cheeks lightly dusted with flour after a dumpling-making session.

Hip Hotels: City (Thames & Hudson, pounds 18.95), a new photo-book by the euphoniously-named Herbert Ypma, is devoted to 30-odd hotels that can "turn a boring business jaunt into a stylish and stimulating experience". The worst meal I ever endured was in a hotel (Scarborough), as were the noisiest night (Venice), the thinnest mattress (Barcelona), the grubbiest sheets (Athens) and the greatest number of mosquito bites (Antigua) Still, I suppose they had the merit of being memorable. These days, most British hotels are bland machines for transmuting sachets of Nescafe, microscopic bars of soap and pallid prints into a torrent of dosh. IN PRINCIPLE, I love the sybaritic decadence of hotel life - the arousing click of high heels on a marble floor - but too often the reality turns out to be somewhat different. Even Mr Djokic, generally the most impartial of academics, says it is hard to hold on to objectivity when bombs fall on the homeland. He has spent the last 10 days glued to the television set or struggling to get a line to Yugoslavia, where his mother is unable to take refuge in the basement because she cannot get her 88-year-old disabled father downstairs."The bombing is bad enough," he says "It is counter-productive But my real worry is what will follow. Where was the sympathy, asks the steward, when 200,000 Serbs were forced out of Krajina in Croatia? "Sometimes media coverage would make you think Serbs did not have women and children," he says.Perhaps it's hard to be generous when those at home are under fire.

Have British Serbs, rallied around the one issue of the bombardment, any sympathy for Kosovo's suffering and dispossessed? Some say they have Other hearts seem hard. But it would be folly to argue the toss with his fellow protesters. She distrusts the media on the basis that Serbs cannot possibly be as demonic as always portrayed."Serbs are partly to blame but not 99.9 per cent," she says. How, she asks, can we be sure that the sinister men in masks hounding Albanians from their homes are not members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, forcing their own people on to the roads to make the Serbs look bad?Mr Balabanovic does not go in for such imaginative interpretations He does not doubt that "ethnic cleansing" is under way. Sonia Besford, a writer, came to Britain from Yugoslavia 28 years ago already in love with English culture For her the bombing is a terrible betrayal.