Next time she’ll pass on the Pavilion

And now the rest of the story.

After publication of the Travel section’s annual “travel turkeys” on Nov. 23, a collection of humorous stories about the travails of trips, several readers asked us to identify a London hotel that author Anne Etheridge, of Orange County, described in “P.S. Don’t Ever Write Me Back.”

Etheridge shared the increasingly abusive and ungrammatical e-mails she received from the boutique hotel as she tried to get a refund for a night she did not stay there. In one outrageous exchange, Etheridge’s correspondent, who identified herself as the personal assistant to the hotel owner, called Etheridge, 56, a “petty old woman.”

When Etheridge protested that she wasn’t old, the assistant replied that she had seen closed-circuit TV footage and “I saw you to be a woman of elderly age (old). Hence the term ‘petty old woman.’ If you are offended by this term I appologise [sic] but it is an honest description.”

Etheridge was offended -- and more -- but agreed not to disclose the name of the hotel as a condition of getting a refund. In printing her story, the Travel section honored her agreement. The story also did not identify the owner or the assistant.

But Nicholas Hellen, the social affairs editor for the Sunday Times of London, bound by no such agreement, tracked down the hotel and on Dec. 14 identified it in a story as the Pavilion, www.smallandeleganthotels.com/london /Pavilion.htm.

Hellen’s story said hotel co-owner Danny Karne was the author of the churlish missives.

Karne did not respond to our requests for an interview, but Noshi Karne, a co-owner of the Pavilion and Danny’s sister, said her brother was covering for his girlfriend, who had taken it upon herself to respond to Etheridge’s communications. He was “being chivalrous” in “carrying the can” for his love interest, Noshi Karne said.

Etheridge remained unimpressed. In an e-mail last week, she wrote, “Danny’s sister needs to take away his car keys and lock him in one of his own hotel rooms so he doesn’t inflict himself on anybody else.”