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THE medieval church used to appoint boys as bishops for a day. The child would have, between sunrise and sunset, the full powers of the episcopacy. I don't know whether this was an exercise in humility by their lordships or if the bishops simply enjoyed a good chuckle watching the poor little brat bless witches, give money to the poor and generally get it all wrong.

  Something similar happened in Hong Kong last week.

  At the Excelsior Hotel - the contemporary equivalent of a cathedral in this town - I was invited to be general manager for a day.

  I was urgently needed. The present GM, Liam Lambert is about to take over at the Mandarin and had to go down the road for a day's briefing on how to be extra smooth with the toffs.

  He may have been surrounded by deputies of 20 years' experience, but a little leprechaun logic told him I was the man to fill the breach at the Excelsior.

  Department heads gathered at 8.45 am for the morning meeting. Wearing a pocket badge protesting more than proclaiming that I was GM, I took the chair.

  The deferential silence had a pin-drop quality.

  At the back, the head of security frowned at me questioningly.

  'Wasn't that the fellow our people once found at three o'clock in the morning trying to . . .?'   In an act of magnanimity which marks top management, I let Peter Low, my resident manager, talk us through the main points.

  The night manager's log book reported a complaint about the noise emanating from nearby construction work; a lost wallet which led the guest to spend much of the evening in Wan Chai police station rather than the hotel; and a cry for help from a 12th floor bedroom.

  This final incident led a night manager to investigate. He tapped at the door and asked to be let in.

  'I can't get to it,' wailed the guest. 'Let yourself in.' This done, the guest was found to be naked and trapped on the lavatory seat.

  The log book is professionally dry and dispassionate in its description of events.

  'The guest had returned to his room intoxicated and fallen asleep on the toilet. Asleep, his buttocks had swollen. Engineering was called. Upon his release the guest thanked staff and engineering for their soft touch.'   As the meeting progressed at speed I found myself upgrading one major travel agent customer and agreeing to meet another in the lobby on arrival, before also greeting a British Airways crew from London.

  Housekeeping assured me that, for an incoming regular Japanese guest, there would be toothpaste with a stripe and a toothbrush with a large head.

  Occupancy in the 1,000-room hotel was reported to be near 90 per cent that night which upset this general manager behind his smile of approval.

  He had hoped to slide a few journalist colleagues in on a freebie. The lads would have to be told.

  I went back to my office to reply to two guests' complaints. In a mistake over a room number, one lady had to wait an hour for a bath towel and another, although in rhapsodies over the waitresses in the Dickens Bar, had his ardour doused when the shower head in his bathroom fell on his toe.

  The administrative offices in the Excelsior are some of the most generous I have seen in a hotel. They are at the front with a harbour view. Interestingly, the male toilet at one end doubles as a disabled one too.

  This is suitable for men of rank because the pedestal is so high off the ground, your legs swing off the edge like a kid's.

  My office suite was very grand. It had two secretaries and overlooked the Noon Day Gun. A time of day to be elsewhere, I noted. The telephone was so thoroughly computerised that it took a secretary to help me use it. It was then I learned that all incoming calls had been diverted to the resident manager.

  There was clearly a little power castration going on here. It was time I threw some weight around. I demanded a cup of coffee. A lad in livery brought it to me.

  Emboldened and heavily badged, I got into the lift and vicariously punched floor numbers.

  Professional behaviour in lifts is a feature of a hotelier. You have to wish unctions good days to guests and let them get in and out first. It must come hard to Hong Kong lads.

  Stalking the corridors, I realised how huge the hotel is.

  Its famous facade gives little hint of the size of the central spine of rooms which ends practically in the centre of Causeway Bay.

  Politely confused housekeeping staff gave way to me as I stalked.

  I wondered if the GM enjoyed any droit de seigneur with them in unmade up rooms. I decided that was pushing it a bit. In the executive floor lounge I was urged to return for cocktails when no urging was needed.

  In the business centre an Irish lady manager stalled in mid phone call and said: 'God, and I suppose we'll be reading all about this in the Post then.' I considered giving her notice until my pager went.

  An emergency in the building site which was once the Victoria Grill Room.

  Grill Rooms are no longer the ticket for many hotels. This one has been ripped out to become an Asian restaurant and bistro. 'Just the man,' said Peter Low in the rubble. 'We need a decision.'   The problem was a leaking water pipe behind a wall. Unattended it might flood and cause mayhem. Cut off for five hours of repair, it would halt water supplies to 180 rooms.

  With heavy managerial emphasis, I decided on the option that had been kindly phrased as the only one. The water was cut off and we went back to our offices ready to fend off outraged telephone calls from guests.

  Low confessed to liking a PR challenge like that. I was gaining the distinct impression these chaps were happier when things were going slightly wrong. 'We will send vociferous complainants chocolates and wine,' he explained. Did he ever give a cash discount?   Here was a shudder behind the smile. 'Not unless absolutely unavoidable.'   There was not one call. Presumably guests have no need to wash their hands in the middle of the day.

  The Excelsior lobby is a colourful amoeba. It never stops moving. Eclectic waves of nationality move in and out. If it's suddenly noisy, Filipinos have arrived.

  If the colours hurt your eyes, an American tour group is going out. A strong cloud of cloves means that Indonesians are loitering.

  Matthew, the front of house manager, told me my one day would leave a legacy of confusion. The real, new general manager looks and is built very much like me.

  The important travel agent did not show up, which was a relief because a chat on wholesale travel and hotel relations was not something I took an A-Level in.

  The British Airways crews did show eventually. They represent 10 per cent of the hotel's business. 'Haven't I seen you before,' said one of the captains. 'Aaah, no. How was the flight?'   'Dreadful. Computer went on the blink over Europe. Could have turned back really, but we decided to plough on. Hard work, though. Do you know the crossword isn't finished yet!' It is amazing what confidences guests give a general manager.

  It was explained to me how important it was to do a lunchtime walk through the restaurants and kitchens: see and be seen. If it is believed that general managers generally stick a nicotine-stained forefinger into the soup to test it, this one was not asked to. They did not know where I had been.

  The kitchens are labyrinthine in the Excelsior. In the Yee Tung Heen Chinese restaurant kitchen I watched the rigid demarcation of floor space between the ranks of cooks.

  The lads who chop up the vegetables - the lowest - never enter the alleyway of the wok chefs, the aristocrats. The professional use of a wok is fast and brutal.

  These chaps never smiled, not even when their general manager gave them his cheery Prince of Wales wave.

  In the afternoon, there was a highly confidential finance meeting with the owners of the hotel.

  That is tedious stuff so I sent my apologies and was visited, instead, in my office suite by my old friend Jill Kluge, director of public relations for The Mandarin Group who said, oddly: 'I can't believe I am seeing this.'   Later, I took a tour of inspection of the renovation works to the Marina function rooms and the Talk of The Town restaurant on the top floor.

  On their side, guests will barely notice neatly painted plywood partitions masked by towering pot plants. On the other side is a construction Hades.

  The impression was that the hotel had taken a direct hit. I doubt the workers in those broilers of dust and concrete had ever seen a hotel before.

  They were probably comfortable in the belief they were renovating a prison.

  Dusting myself down back in the office, the group's director of marketing called. He gave me a tongue-in-cheek taste of what Lambert puts up with most days.

  Last night there were only eight 'walk-ins' (guests who come in off the street paying the full rate: the hoteliers dream). The reps at Kai Tak should be hustling harder.

  Eleven rooms had been given away free. He hoped there had been no journalists among them.

  Forty-eight rooms had been 'day use' only. Why hadn't they sold for the full 24 hours? (I blanched. The Excelsior does 'short time'? They all do, it seems. 'Afternoon pleasures', a colleague described them as). Seventy-five rooms had not been used at all, Mr Wolfendale.

  Why was that? I protested that we were at nearly 90 per cent and we could not have everything. He disagreed. 'Those are 75 rooms that will never be sold again.'   I promised him a memo before the end of the day and then Lambert returned from his toffs and gave me some polished answers off the cuff.

  It was all over then. We went together up to the lounge for cocktails and I took off my badge in the lift. The real king was back in his realm.

  It was only when I was in the taxi queue at the front door that I cursed myself for one oversight. At least, before Lambert returned, I could have ordered the car and driver.



When hospitality knocks