The door shuts and they leap into their competitive scrounging around checking sheets for stains, errant human hairs, dead spiders or squashed ants. And that's just the bed.
Fingers are stiffly held out as the appointed dust detector person skids along the pelmets, window sills, all wooden fixtures, lamps everything with a surface. Second detector person dives into the bathroom/shower and loo fixated on discovering a foreign body, an ugly stain or, perish the thought, a non-flush.
Their triumphant howls of glee when they discover a small demon is horrendous like they have discovered a new planet or a cure for cancer.
Oh and the mattress test. Much bouncing heavily on the bed.
That same night their hosts treat them to dinner and rest assured their dinner conversation is polite, perfunctory and downright boring because, you see, this dinner is not part of the fierce competition it's strictly time out.
And so to lights out and the ''how did you sleep" question at The Horses Tail ... or whatever.
Then it's the Master Chef breakfast round. Expectations are pulsing as the guests waiting on their full English brekky of eggs bacon, sausages, tomatoes, baked beans, mushrooms with endless round of toast, pots of coffee and teas.
I have never heard sausages discussed so energetically. I don't even think a global sausage conference could outdo their comments. The picky, told-you-so, gripey remarks are rampant: from the snarlers being over spicy, too fat, too thin, too dry, too fatty.And woe betide the cook who gets the egg order scrambled or sends out lukewarm toast.
Then the guests head off upstairs to fill in their scoresheet with categories like how were your hosts, how were the facilities, etc at the Horses Tail, all marked out of 10.
Final wash-up, or in my opinion washout, is hosts reading what their guests really thought.
Am still a bit fractious. What a load of old horse poos.