Ten hours, a late start and a slow morning

What the ten hours actually cover

From the hour she comes through the door to the hour she leaves, however you choose to spend it. In practice most overnights here start somewhere between ten and midnight and finish after breakfast. Some of them are entirely indoors. Plenty are not: the east is one of the few parts of London where there is still somewhere open at two, and walking back at that hour through empty streets is half the reason people book the long version.

The ten hours are a length rather than a schedule. Nobody is going to wake you to announce that hour eight has begun, and nobody is going to sit up counting. What the length buys is the absence of arithmetic, which is the single thing that separates an overnight from three hours that kept getting extended.

Where a whole night works best

Out at Bow the overnight is ordinary rather than an occasion, because the journey is long and nobody wants to do it for two hours. Fish Island studios, the terraces off Roman Road and the flats behind Bow Quarter take more of these than anywhere else on this site.

In Hackney it is the standard Saturday booking, usually a flat rather than a room. Hotel overnights cluster in Shoreditch and around the City edge, where the buildings are used to guests coming and going and nobody in the lobby looks up. A studio apartment with a kitchen in it changes the morning entirely, which is why the Aldgate ones are popular.

How the night tends to run

Badly planned, in the best sense. The first hour is a drink and the conversation you were going to have anyway. Somewhere in the middle there is usually food, ordered in or found late. The part people describe afterwards is generally around three in the morning, when nobody is performing and the talk drops two registers. Then a proper sleep, because ten hours is long enough to include one and the booking is not improved by pretending otherwise.

The morning, which is included

She is not gone at six. Breakfast, coffee, a slow start and a normal goodbye are inside the ten hours, and the women who take overnights are the ones who are good at the morning rather than only the night. If you have something at nine, say so when you book and the start time gets moved earlier rather than the finish being quietly clipped.

The ones who take the long version

Cindy is worth the full night because she opens up slowly and is at her best in the third hour. Molly is the warmest morning on this roster by a distance. Liana and Samanta both come out to E3 and would far rather stay than cross London twice. Michelle is direct about it: she would rather you had the real version than the polite first hour of it.

What to tell the desk, and what not to worry about

Give the address, the hour you want her there and whether the morning has anything in it. Give the room number and the name it is booked under at the confirming stage and nowhere else. You do not need to plan the night, arrange food, or explain what you want it to be, and the fee is handed to her when she arrives so there is nothing hanging over the rest of it.