That's getting terribly close to invoking Godwin's Law isn't it?

Yes, but anyone who's ever played 'Trivial Pursuit' knows that the answer is almost always Thatcher, JFK or Churchill. It's irrevocable true. We had the 1993 Genus III version for a long time and that exemplified this point in a remarkable way!

Who won the 1972 Olympics 4x100 relay? Churchill!

Hmm... I think I'm slightly offended by the short step from bottled cat to Thatcher.

EgonSpengler Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Margaret Thatcher. The answer is ALWAYS Margaret
> Thatcher, JFK or Churchill.
Only when it isn't Nixon.

Back to the subject:
A holiday in Morocco in a British holiday centre run by French management.
They went out of their way to screw anyone who wasn't French.
Arrival delayed by 5 hours and got to the place at 3am. The locals were there to welcome us. drunk and making lost of noise but no one helped with the baggage.
It rained for most of the first week and they only allowed French language entertainment. When the Brits tried to make their own entertainment the management shut down the area by turning off the lights.
My daughter was bitten by a dog owned by one of the gardeners but management refused to help us in checking the animal. We ended up having to put my daughter on a course of rabies injections. Very painful.
I got impaled on a metal spike while windsurfing.
After months of litigation we got our money plus compensation.

A couple of months ago we spent 3 weeks in Western Canada and managed to visit Jasper. See my entry on Jasper site.

-----------------------------------------
Joint winner Colouring Competition 2007
and outright winner of the 3 time winner of the Ffestival Dodo Feeding competition.
Fforde Ffiesta Ffotos are here - [www.flickr.com]

Don't be offended, Kitten. Everyone's a short step away from Thatcher in Trivial Pursuit land! Or Nixon, of course.

My worst holiday? I think teaching English in Kalisz, Poland for a month wins that one. Never ever share a room with strangers. 'Nuff said.

<not about a bad holiday - just one day - the day the Iron(ic) lady(more ironic) came to power - was wandering down Whitehall after boozy farewell to a Kiwi friend who was going back to the land of the long white overdraft to get married - saw crowd outside No 10 - Next thing Maggot Hatcher is wheeled in in RR or Daimler or such - Crowd starts singing "Land of hope and glory..." - I started singing 'Land of hopeless Tories..." - was politely asked to move on by nice young copper who said that if I didn't then I would be taken in for being drunk and correct, for if the crowd had heard me then they would probably have beaten me up.'>

<staggered of to Streatham via Brixton. No worries.>

<PS Aussies don't have conspiracies. It's too much trouble to make them up. We stick to the truth.>



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/2008 05:33AM by bunyip.

Annie, your experience was very sad, I am very sorry to hear of your mum's death, I hope you had some friends or family around to help with your mum's stuff and of course with dealing with grief.

On a slightly related note (awfulness, death) years ago my mum died when I was a youngster in the workforce and I also had to clean up her place and was grieving (still do after all this time). Anyway as the end approached (hospice told me so) I booked some holidays so as to be able spend time with her before the end without having to go to boring and petty wage-slave job (in a bank in Adelaide). She died right at the end of my "holidays", when i rang the Manager to say I would be taking my rightful 2 whole days bereavement leave and he told me that he had already checked (with "admin" and even with the union) and if you have a bereavement on your holidays you dont get bereavement leave - so yeah I had to return to work or get docked pay. I had to ask for one unpaid day to go to the funeral and then return to work. Gee aren't banks (and managers) nice?

Who would have thought bankers could be so mean and so wrong, financial meltdown anyone, moral meltdown more like it!

Sorry - ranting a bit - but that whole grief, work, coping thing still really gets to me.

Karen,

Sorry to hear about the bereaving bit.

Sounds like State bank* was with whom you were with. Thankfully now gone and absorbed effectively into St George Bank. But it could have been any of the banks as they all followed the ideology as espoused in the report by David Frost that the Inland Revenue in UK had a saying: 'If we can bring the least bit of happiness to someone, somewhere, then someone's slipped up.'

*
their staff relations were legendary#, as was their customer relations.

# legend as in myth.

Hi Bunyip - liked your post.

It was quite some years ago but some things stick in your memory! I do love that quote re the Inland Revenue - will have to share it around!

It wasn't State Bank, but gee weren't banks once realllly conservative (think they may still be so but have attempted a more hip image through advertising agencies). I was always in trouble (this was in mid 1980's) for not using the convention of Mrs John Smith for married women but instead being dangerously outrageous and typing, yes typing letters to Mrs Jane Smith instead of using husband's name!

Without sounding like I am still unhealthily dwelling on it (I've moved on, honest, I'm in a different field now and a mum too) I also remember another very shocking comment at this same time which may horrify you....& love (sort of, you know what i mean) to hear if anyone else has any such outrageous examples of rank offensivess.....

My mum had a for the time brand new never before used bit of painrelief machinery inserted under her skin, not a syringe driver but like a little pacemaker thing which you couldnt see but could feel the lump. Anyway a few hours after her death I got a call from the hospital who inserted it asking me when they could have the machine back "because it was very expensive and we can re-use them". I asked them if I should be at the hospice ripping it out myself with a dinner knife...but no response to that. They did get it back but there's ways of asking things aren't there?

I won't dredge up any more of these long-ago tales in fact I should be out getting the Fforde which I havent got yet as I have somehow missed one!

Oh dear, Imagine being the poor student suckered into making that phone call.

...I have found a way off really annoying the banks. Whenever they send one of those reply paid application forms through the mail I fill them in and put a zero $ limit and don't sign it. It also gets all sorts of misleading data entered such as date of birth being 48BC, mother's name: Calpurnia, occupation: crosser of Rubicon#, and other such. It makes work for the lower ranks in the organisation but i hope that in some way I can bring a chuckle to their lives.




#[[[[ I always wanted a stallion racehorse named Rubicon for the inevitable comments that would follow. (I also wanted two horses called "Peytoate" and "Proateste" for the obvious reasons, but a friend said the associations wouldn't register any names that could cause confusion with official terms.)]]]]