Hotel Babylon - Tapa dura

The hotel business is a licence to print money - not only for the managers, owners and shareholders, but for the people who work there. From chambermaids' tips, to doormen making #2,000 a week, to the concierge taking back handers, to the vegetable supplier's book keeping double entry - everyone in the hotel trade is on the make. The hotel business is a licence for the guests to steal - anything from bathrobes, loo seats (wooden and Victorian from the Savoy), pictures, fridges, ashtrays, teaspoons - even re-filling the vodka bottle in the mini bar with water. The hotel business is a licence for guests to behave badly - from rent boys and girls by the hour, to #800 on telephone porn bills, #24,000 room parties, office sex, drugs, dead sheep, splashing out on #5,000 bottles of wine, guests falling through windows, naked guests, drunken guests and guests who have to be sectioned. The hotel business is also a licence for celebrity to reign supreme - from Michael Jackson's Evian bath to Madonna's odd curtain fetish, Kate Moss and Johnny Depp's parties, Princess Diana's taste for champagne, Pamela Anderson's sexual gymnastics, The Queen Mother's chips and Prince Phillip's Silver Bullet cocktail. HOTEL BABYLON is a trawl through the highs and lows, the extremes, the tragedies, the miseries, the decadence and the debauchery of the ultimate service industry - where money not only talks, but gets you the best room, the best service, and also entitles you to behave in any way you please ...

The author is currently the manager of a luxurious central London hotel.