Oiks Offer Economics Lesson to Unseasoned Hoteliers

Ever since the super-swanky Four Seasons Hotel Gresham Palace Budapest opened its doors a few months ago, we've been dying to make a joke featuring the law of economics named for same man the hotel is named for, the 16th Century British merchant and financier Sir Thomas Gresham, pictured right. If you don't remember your economics 101, Gresham's law holds that "where legal tender laws exist, bad money drives out good money." In other words, when something good and something awful are mixed together, the good picks up and leaves and the awful gets the run of the place.

This seems to neatly describe what happened last Saturday night in the lobby of the hotel, thanks to an influx of British oiks making an early stop on what was no doubt a whopper of a fly-away stag night. According to our spy, who was at the hotel celebrating an important wedding anniversary, sometime after 9:00 p.m. a troop of approximately 20 exuberant Englishmen entered the bar area, looking thirsty and milling around one gentleman our source took to be the stag. "The guy was naked except for chaps and a red thong that was riding up his big butt." Charming.

As the louts prepared to drink the Gresham's bar, an employee of the hotel approached. But after spending just a few seconds trying to gently send away the clowns, she abruptly folded and let them stay. "I couldn't believe it," our source said. "We just walked out."

Now, we love a good revolting puker of a party as much as the next person. But we also hate the idea of this oasis of quiet elegance being so savagely desecrated. So to whomever at the Gresham is in charge of minding the door, how about trying a little harder? We've already resigned ourselves to having our new favorite hotel marred by Americans tourists in T-shirts and Germans in light blue socks and sandals. But chaps and a deep-butt thong? Let them tell it to the hand.