London - (Ass mess): Lord Basil Fawlty, the hotel and catering magnate, died today aged 98 after spending the night in one of his typical Presidential Suites at a Truss House Fawlty hotel in Bognor Regis.
His attorney told the press that "Lord Fawlty pissed away pissfully in his sleep at 7am".
The hotelier started his career as the owner of a London brothel. He then went on to become the head of a worldwide chain of massage parlors, greasy spoon cafes and fetishistic boarding houses that soon earned their brand name of Truss House following the enthusiasm of their S&M patrons.
He was of uncertain origin, but his name and that of his company, Truss House Fawlty, became a key part of British perception of what the hospitality industry was really all about.
He was made a Life Peer by Margaret Thatcher in 1981 and then proceeded to try to blow her up while she and the Conservative Party Conference slept at the Truss House Fawlty Grand Hotel in Brighton in the autumn of 1984.
Nobody is sure exactly why but some think it might be because she spurned his subsequent advances after the requisite single night of passion and a £5 million backhander to Tory Party coffers that sealed his peerage.
A flag will fly at half mast at all Truss House Fawlty hotels, boarding houses and sex-change clinics for the remainder of the week as a mark of tribute.
