Another Few Funnies For Friday

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”



It’s Friday again so time for another few funnies. This time another batch from the insurance claim file. I hope you enjoy.



"I was driving along the motorway when the police pulled me over onto the hard shoulder. Unfortunately I was in the middle lane and there was another car in the way.."



Q: “Could either driver have done anything to avoid the accident?”
A: “Travelled by bus?”



"On approach to the traffic lights the car in front suddenly broke."



"First car stopped suddenly, second car hit first car and a haggis ran into the rear of second car."



"The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intention."



"The accident happened when the right front door of a car came round the corner without giving a signal."



"My car got hit by a submarine."


(The Navy informed the wife of a submariner that the craft was due in port. She drove to the base to meet her husband and parked at the end of the slip where the sub was to berth. An inexperienced ensign was conning the sub and it rammed the end of the slip, breaking a section away, causing her car to fall into the water. The Navy paid the compensation claim.)



"I bumped into a lamp-post which was obscured by human beings."



"The accident was caused by me waving to the man I hit last week."



"I knocked over a man; he admitted it was his fault for he had been knocked down before."

"A house hit my car."

(A house was being moved by a large truck. My friend had his car parked on the side of the road correctly. The house began to tilt off the truck and eventually fell off the truck, landing on my friend's car. He eventually had the insurance paid, after lengthy explanation and the moving company confirming the story.)

The Things People Say – To Their Insurance Companies

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

Always try to start the week with a smile. This time it is with the help of another helping from those rather confused citizens who write reports to their insurance companies after an accident. They always make interesting reading and usually raise a smile or two.

As ever, hope you enjoy.

I collided with a stationary truck coming the other way.

A truck backed through my windshield into my wife's face.

The other car collided with mine without giving warning of its intention.

My car was legally parked as it backed into another vehicle.

When I saw I could not avoid a collision I stepped on the gas and crashed into the other car.

To avoid hitting the bumper of the car in front I struck a pedestrian.

I started to slow down but the traffic was more stationary than I thought.

The accident occurred when I was attempting to bring my car out of a skid by steering it into the other vehicle.

I was backing my car out of the driveway in the usual manner, when it was struck by the other car in the same place it had been struck several times before.

I was unable to stop in time and my car crashed into the other vehicle. The driver and passengers then left immediately for a vacation with injuries.

I saw her look at me twice. She appeared to be making slow progress when we met on impact.

The gentleman behind me struck me on the backside. He then went to rest in a bush with just his rear end showing.

The car in front of me stopped for a yellow light, so I had no choice but to hit him. (She pushed him through the intersection)

The pedestrian ran for the pavement, but I got him.

The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.

I was sure the old fellow would never make it to the other side of the road when I struck him.

The pedestrian had no idea which way to run as I ran over him.

The car in front hit the pedestrian but he got up so I hit him again.

I saw a slow moving, sad faced old gentleman as he bounced off the roof of my car.

A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Some More Insurance Claims

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

Today I started to write a blog post about something entirely different. Then I came across another selection of motor insurance claims. I always enjoy these. It is fascinating what the general public can do with the English language. They don’t quite kill it, but they certainly torture it a bit.

Here’s today’s selection.

I hope you enjoy them.

The claimant had collided with a cow.

The questions and answers on the claim form were –

Q: What warning was given by you?

A: Horn.

Q: What warning was given by the other party?

A: Moo.

Who is to Blame?

No one was to blame for the accident but it would never have happened if the other driver had been alert.

I didn't think the speed limit applied after midnight.

I had been shopping for plants all day and was on my way home. As I reached an intersection a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision and I did not see the other car.

The indirect cause of the accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth.

I was going at about 70 or 80 mph when my girlfriend reached over and grabbed my testicles so I lost control.

I was on the way to the doctor with rear end trouble when my universal joint gave way causing me to have an accident.

On approach to the traffic lights the car in front suddenly broke.

The accident was caused by me waving to the man I hit last week.

Windshield broke. Cause unknown. Probably Voodoo.

No witnesses would admit having seen the mishap until after it happened.

I had been learning to drive with power steering. I turned the wheel to what I thought was enough and found myself in a different direction going the opposite way.

The accident happened when the right front door of a car came round the corner without giving a signal.

I had been driving for forty years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had an accident.

I left for work this morning at 7am as usual when I collided straight into a bus. The bus was 5 minutes early.

An invisible car came out of nowhere, struck my car and vanished.

I knew the dog was possessive about the car but I would not have asked her to drive it if I had thought there was any risk.

The accident happened because I had one eye on the truck in front, one eye on the pedestrian, and the other on the car behind.

I started to turn and it was at this point I noticed a camel and an elephant tethered at the verge. This distraction caused me to lose concentration and hit a bollard.

Drained Of Life - Almost

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

The last couple of blog post have concerned people featured in the Darwin Awards, “Never Hitch Your Wagon” about someone who wasn’t eligible because he survived his and his wife’s stupidity, and “Little Dumb And Large Dumber” because their dumbness did make them successful Darwin Award winners.

I had a friend who almost featured in the Darwin Awards too. The only reason he didn’t was because they didn’t exist in those days and probably none of us would have had the presence of mind to nominate him anyway.

I won’t tell you his real name, have to expose the innocent and protect the guilty and all that, but his nickname was “Goners” pronounced “Gone-ers”. It was a nickname he gained after the incident I am now going to tell you about, and for most of his friends he’s still stuck with it to this day.

It happened when we were all young guys, in our teens and spending a leisurely summer messing around and generally enjoying life the way you can before you get older and wiser and burden yourself with responsibilities and debt and so forth. Then the Dads were paying the mortgage and bringing home the bacon (sometimes literally) and we were carefree and happy.

This day we decided to go for a walk along a nearby river. None of us were keen fishermen but we liked the river and walks along the riverbanks and the little stony beaches that the river’s meanders had left here and there. That particular summer was hot and a bit of bathing in the cool clear unpolluted water was also on the agenda.

It wasn’t a big river, no Amazon that’s for sure. Just about 50 feet across, or thereabouts, and maybe four or five feet deep towards the middle. There were a few deeper holes that serious fishermen tended to use, but we were always content messing around in the shallower water. It was fun and safe. In fact thinking and writing about it, I wish I was back there right now.

But I’m not, so on with the story.

Part of the river bank was relatively flat with only a slightly sloping bank down to the water. Other parts were a straight drop. And yet others consisted of a fairly steep slope down to the water’s edge.  

Local farmers had dug drains at intervals to let rainwater run off their fields into the river, and between where the man-made drains ended and the river began, the water flow had over the years dug its own ‘V’ and then ‘U’ type trenches by eroding the top soil.

These had to be negotiated when one was walking along the riverbank, but it wasn’t a problem. That was how things were and everybody just accepted it and got on with it. I’m sure nowadays there would be a bureaucratic do-gooding group wanting all sorts of rules and regulations both to disrupt the farmer’s lives and to spoil the nature walk for the rest of us. In those days some interfering busybody was more likely to end up in the river and they knew it so they stayed away.

Of course, when I said the drains weren’t a problem, what I meant was they weren’t a problem for most of the people most of the time. But there’s always one idiot who will find a way to mess up even a nice summer’s day stroll along the riverbank.

Enter “Goners” into the story.

Although the day I am recounting was idyllic weather wise, during the previous night there had been a thunderstorm and some furious rain for a little while. The result of that was that the following morning there was considerable run-off of rainwater from the fields, via the farmer’s drains into the river. This made the areas close to the drains a little wet and slippery, not to mention mucky.

We had been walking for a few miles, successfully crossing all the open drains we had encountered. And then it happened!

“Goners” tripped or lost is concentration or something, but his balance went and he headed over the side of the riverbank.

At first this caused unbridled hilarity amongst the rest of us. We were laughing and pointing and cheering. If we had had pens and paper with us, no doubt we would have held up makeshift score cards critiquing the ‘dive’. But we hadn’t so we just laughed and laughed, not only at the dive but at the frantic wriggling and gurgling of “Goners” in the trench.   

Then somebody twigged on what was happening and said, “OMG I think he’s drowning!”

“How can you drown in three inches of water?”, came a chorus of incredulous replies.  

But he was.

“Goners” was in BIG trouble.

He WAS actually drowning in probably less then three inches of water.

“Goners” had fallen into the drain nature had made with the water erosion. Obviously he didn’t intend to, and, unprepared, he fell head first, with his arms by his sides, as opposed to being in a normal diving position with his arms outstretched in front of him and slightly raised.

As he had slid down the riverbank towards the water he had embedded himself farther and farther into the drain, trapping his arms by his side.

And when he reached the water, which was indeed barely three inches deep at the edge, his face including his nose and mouth were submerged under the level of the water.

The frantic wriggling wasn’t just to try to free his arms, but to try to get his mouth and nose out of the water to grab some much needed air. And he clearly wasn’t having much success.  

Once we realized that he was in real trouble, of course it was all hands on deck so to speak and everyone rushed to his assistance. Two of us each grabbed one of his feet and pulled him back up the bank a little so that his head came out of the water. Much to his relief, and ours, “Goners” made a few huge grabs for air and the crisis seemed to be over.

Now I don’t know to this day whether what happened next was a deliberate act, something sub-conscious, or just another minor accident, but with his movement and gasping for air his feet, which like the rest of him were slippery with the muck from the drain, managed to slip out of our hands and he slid back into the water again. Gurgle, gurgle, wriggle, splutter, gurgle….

We knew he was in no danger this time and yes, we did laugh again. It was funny for everyone but “Goners”. Some of us – not me you understand, no definitely not me, of course not, don’t be silly, how could you think such a thing – could have played that game all day, pulling him out of the river and then letting him slide back in. Thinking about it now, we probably invented a new water-boarding technique, to us at the time it was just fun.

But we must have thought better of it after a couple of ‘dunks’ because the we pulled “Goners” out of the drain completely and back up on to dry land.

When he got his wits about him once again he said, “Thanks guys. I was nearly a goner.”

And that was his nickname for ever more, “Goners”.

It shows you just how easily and innocently things can happen that under different circumstances would have had a lot more tragic results.

Postscript:

Strangely enough, many years later, in the very same river as it happens, a guy called Willy (the same as featured in my blog post “Willy And Woof”) did the very same thing while walking back home from a bar, very, very drunk. That time however there was no one around to help.

Now he could have been a Darwin Award winner!

  

Don’t Drink And Drive, Please!

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy” 


 I did a post a while ago about how I hate thieves (I still do).

Well, me being me, there are others on my hate list too. It isn’t a long list but one prominent group on it is drunk drivers.

 There is a simple rule that everyone should follow.

 If you want to drink don’t drive and if you want to drive don’t drink.

 There are no gray areas. Don’t think you can follow stupid rules made by stupid bureaucrats. There are no minimum amounts that suit everybody. Drink is like shoes, people take different sizes. I know some people who could drink a bottle of vodka and you wouldn’t even know they’d had a drink. And I know people who if they even sniffed the open bottle would be on their way to being drunk. This has a lot to do with the body’s size, metabolism, how much alcohol it can cope with and in what timescale and so forth. But it also has to do with the person’s psychological make up too.

Some people will get drunk just because they think they should be drunk. Not because they actually are. You know the type, people who run about like headless chickens if they drink a can of Red Bull even though there’s just about the same amount of caffeine in it as in a cup of tea or coffee. What they’ve really done is swallow the advertising hype as well as the Red Bull. Personally I think it’s lovely stuff, but I’m able to down a couple of tins and still go straight to sleep.

 I’ve actually tried an experiment to prove my point. One night at a party at my house I gave real beer to most of the people and alcohol free beer to a couple of the others (without telling them of course). You can guess what happened. Yes, the people who were drinking the non alcoholic beer got just as drunk and had just as good a time as everyone else, and they probably had hangovers to prove it the next morning!

 But getting back to drinking and driving, or rather drinking and not driving, I have seen one or two macho morons drinking away and driving away and doing it quite publicly. That’s their real reason of course, doing it publicly. If you are intellectually challenged you imagine that the stupider things you do makes you the bigger man. Truly it doesn’t.

 I have also seen one of these morons plough into another car and severely injure some poor innocents, which is very sad. And I’ve also seen the remnants of a car that another moron drove into a tree while drunk. He killed himself, and quite frankly that isn’t so sad at all.

 There are a couple of videos below just to prove the dangers, if you want to look at them, but first I’ll end with the inevitable joke.

 Enjoy!


 “I would like to share an experience with you, about drinking and driving. 


 As you well know, some people have been known to have had brushes with the authorities on our way home from the odd social session over the years. 


 A couple of nights ago, I was out for a few drinks with some friends and had a few too many beers and some rather nice red wine. 


 Knowing full well I may have been slightly over the limit, I did something I've never done before. 


 I took a bus home. 


 Sure enough there were police checks, but they waved the bus through without a problem. 


 I arrived home safely and without incident, which was a real surprise. 


 I’ve have never driven a bus before and I’m not even sure where I got it.”



 Now for the videos. I haven’t included any gory stuff. You all get the point and if you want to research the subject there are a number of videos on youtube.com.

 The first I have selected shows a drunk trying to park a car. If one hasn’t the coordination to do something as simple as that when drunk, imagine how much control there would be on the road, particularly in a critical situation.

 The second video is a bit long but shows another drunk weaving back and forth across the road (albeit with a rather irritating commentary from the cameraman, sorry about that). But the drunk gets his just desserts in the end and only injures himself.

Travel Agents Get Asked Some Funny Things

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

Only very occasionally these days do I use a travel agent. I prefer to organize things myself online. But then I am a fairly experienced traveler. For many other people, particularly the intellectually challenged it seems, the travel agent is their first and last port of call when organizing a vacation. 

The following are actual stories provided by travel agents. Since I read these I’m wondering if there should be some kind of proficiency test before one is allowed out of the house let alone venture into another county or country. 

That’s one for the bureaucrats to ponder over, but it probably won’t happen, after all most of them couldn’t pass it and they all like their little trips at our expense.

As usual, I hope you enjoy.

What the travel agents said:

I had someone ask for an aisle seat so that their hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window.

 - - - - - - - - - -

A client called in inquiring about a package to Hawaii.

After going over all the cost info, she asked, "Would it be cheaper to fly to California and then take the train to Hawaii?"

 - - - - - - - - - -

I got a call from a woman who wanted to go to Capetown.

I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information when she interrupted me with "I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Cape Town is in Massachusetts."

Without trying to make her look like the stupid one, I calmly explained, "Cape Cod is in Massachusetts, Capetown is in Africa."

Her response... click.

 - - - - - - - - - -

A man called, furious about a Florida package we did.

I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando.

He said he was expecting an ocean-view room.

I tried to explain that is not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state.

He replied, "Don't lie to me. I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state."

 - - - - - - - - - -

I got a call from a man who asked, "Is it possible to see England from Canada?"

I said, "No."

He said, "But they look so close on the map."

 - - - - - - - - - -

Another man called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas.

When I pulled up the reservation, I noticed he had a 1-hour lay-over in Dallas.

When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car, he said, "I heard Dallas was a big airport, and I need a car to drive between the gates to save time."

 - - - - - - - - - -

A nice lady just called.

She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:20am and got into Chicago at 8:33am.

I tried to explain that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois, but she could not understand the concept of time zones.

Finally I told her the plane went very fast, and she bought that!

 - - - - - - - - - -

A woman called and asked, "Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know whose luggage belongs to who?"

I said, "No, why do you ask?"

She replied, "Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said FAT, and I'm overweight, is there any connection?"

After putting her on hold for a minute while "I looked into it," ( I was actually laughing) I came back and explained that the city code for Fresno is FAT, and that the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage.

 - - - - - - - - - -

I just got off the phone with a man who asked, "How do I know which plane to get on?"

I asked him what exactly he meant, to which he replied, "I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these darn planes have numbers on them."

 - - - - - - - - - -

A woman called and said, "I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola on one of those computer planes."

I asked if she meant to fly to Pensacola on a commuter plane.

She said, "Yeah, whatever."

 - - - - - - - - - -

A business man called and had a question about the documents he needed in order to fly to China.

After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded him he needed a visa.

"Oh no I don't, I've been to China many times and never had to have one of those."

I double checked and sure enough, his stay required a visa.

When I told him this he said, "Look, I've been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express."

 - - - - - - - - - -

A secretary called in looking for hotel in Los Angles.


She gave me various names off a list, none of which I could find I finally had her fax me the list.


To my surprise, it was a list of hotels in New Orleans, Louisiana.


She thought the LA stood for Los Angles, and that New Orleans was a suburb of of L.A.


Worst of all, when I called her back, she was not even embarrassed.

 - - - - - - - - - -

A woman called to make reservations, "I want to go from Chicago to Hippopotamus, New York."

The agent was at a loss for words.

Finally, the agent asked, "Are you sure that's the name of the town?"

"Yes, what flights do you have?" replied the customer.

After some searching, the agent came back with, "I'm sorry, ma'am, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a Hippopotamus anywhere."

The customer retorted, "Oh don't be silly. Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!"

The agent scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, "You don't mean Buffalo, do you?"

She replied, "That's it! I knew it was a big animal!"

 

Lost In Transit

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

I wrote a little while ago about Tommy who got lost in the fog in a field beside his own house, and about Thomas Nutall the worst explorer in the world. Well, sense of direction, or the lack thereof, has come up many times in my journeys.

I used to travel on business with a guy called “Bill”. Bill was a nice man, old-school, good manners, fairly prim and proper I suppose you would say. He was in his seventies when I got to know him and worked along with him.

He should have been retired from business but he had a wife who sounded a lot better from a considerable distance and luckily she was not unhappy about getting rid of him for a while – as often as possible as it turns out!

Anyway, domestic bliss aside, Bill made frequent plane trips which obviously meant using airports.

Getting him on to a plane usually wasn’t so bad, although if he stopped to buy something or talk to somebody and you walked on without him, he would always be the last man on to the plane.

But the real fun was when Bill got off the plane. Even on short trips, where the gin and tonics hadn’t been flowing in his direction.

Actually, I’ll come back to that in a moment – I’d forgotten about this until I started to write this blog post.

Bill even got lost once inside the airplane itself. I mean actually inside the airplane! Can you believe it?

He had got up, I presume to go to the bathroom – no, hang on, I absolutely refuse to call what they have on airplanes a “bathroom”; for a start there’s no “bath”, and for another thing there’s no “room” either; it’s a “toilet”, and a small one at that, okay! And for another thing why are they always so small, whether you are on a huge 747 Jumbo jet (I haven’t yet been on one of those Airbus monsters) or a piddly small 737, the toilets are still the same size. All for the sake of being able to offer a couple of extra seats to keep more passengers total discomfort. End rant. Sorry about that, back to today’s blog.

As I was saying, he had got up, I presume to go to the bathroom. There had been a queue at the toilet closest to where Bill was sitting, so he wandered to another one on the far side, and at the back, of the plane (it was 747, small toilets but a big plane!)

But when he opened the door and walked out he didn’t know where he was! I mean, he knew where he was, he knew he was on a plane, but he didn’t know where his seat was and he couldn’t remember the number. And his routine was to put boarding passes, tickets and other paperwork neatly away in his carry on bag before take-off, so he had nothing to refer to.  

He had a walk round first class and was gently ushered out of it by a polite, but firm, flight attendant, before he managed to make his way up the stairs. He inspected business class but saw nothing familiar. Then he spent the next twenty minutes walking up and down the wrong aisle looking for his seat in coach.

I watched what was going on. But I didn’t help him out. And I kept my head down so that he wouldn’t see me. We were sitting together and I didn’t want to give him a clue as to where to look. It was too funny and I was enjoying it, much better that whatever film they were showing at the time. And I knew there was a limit to where he could go.

After a good half hour he showed up.

“You were away for a while,” I said when he got back.

“I didn’t feel too well,” he told me. “And I went to ask one of the flight attendants for some water and an aspirin.”

“Oh?” I answered. “I though maybe you’d got lost or something.”

“No, no, nothing like that.”

I just left it, he’d already given me enough entertainment. He went to sleep and that was it until we landed.

Which is actually what I started to say in the first place. Bill was just a normal bloke when the airplane doors opened and everyone started to funnel out into the terminal. It was when he got out into the open that the fun started.

For some strange reason Bill invariably took off like a bullet. And always in the completely wrong direction. If he was going for a connecting flight he headed for baggage claim and the exit. If he was at his journey’s end he headed for connecting flights. And all at top speed.

The first few times I tried to run after him, but it was hard work, he had a remarkable turn of speed for an older man. After that I just let him run wherever he thought he was going. Once he even walked from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1 at Heathrow airport, and back again, and that is quite a distance despite what the airport brochures tell you. It was perhaps fortunate that he didn’t get on the underground train and end up in the middle of London somewhere.

By the way, when an airport brochure says “close” reckon on at least half a mile or more, and if have lots of luggage that’s a long way.

Remarkably though, he always turned up – eventually. He never said what had happened or where he had been. And I never asked, so I don’t know.

I’m certain that made two of us!

Have you had similar experiences? Send them along. Let the world know what is happening before it is too late.

The Great Escape

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

I won’t tell you exactly how I know about this story, let’s just say it was recounted in great detail by a very good friend of mine who, whilst he wasn’t part of this particular adventure, was also the unwilling recipient of Saddam Hussein’s hospitality for a while back before the first Gulf War in 1990. My thanks to him.

Following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 the United States, Britain, and their allies decided they would have to help out the Kuwaitis (it’s like they had oil or something, eh?) and they started to make very public plans to liberate that country. This would obviously involve attacks on Iraqi troops and on Iraq itself.

Saddam Hussein thought a good way to dissuade any bombing campaign against his country was to use American, British and European citizens who had been working in Iraq, as a ‘human shield’ against the bombs. Highly illegal and breaching the Geneva Convention and all that, but it was Saddam Hussein and what did he care about rules.

The workers were duly rounded up by Saddam’s men and either put under house arrest or confined in small compounds. They weren’t mistreated and had a limited amount of freedom, but still in the back of their minds they feared they were about to be used for real as that human shield and they knew that when the war started in earnest the bombing would be a necessary part of it. 

Most of the ‘hostages’ sat tight in the hope that diplomatic negotiations would succeed and they would be released, which in fact is what did happen.

But a few intrepid souls, who worked for a construction company, decided that they would mount an escape and head for the border. Maybe they had been watching a DVD of The Great Escape or something the night before, I don’t know.

They gathered up supplies of food and as much water as they could carry and in the dead of night they set off. It was relatively easy for them to get out of the hostage compound because the Iraqis knew that no one in their right mind would try to escape. The only thing outside Bagdad was desert, and lots of it.

In what passed for a plan, the would-be escapees had figured that their best bet would be to head for Jordan. Syria was deemed to be too unfriendly and would probably shoot them or send them back to Iraq. The border to the north was far too far away and the terrain was harsh. And the border between Iraq and Iran they reckoned could well be mined because of the war that had just ended less than two years previously between the two states.

So west it was, a long journey, but they set off in good spirits and their confidence level high.

Because of the heat during the day they had decided they would make the best progress if they walked by night and rested by day. A sensible enough strategy. And so it was. Night after night after night they walked and in the daytime found a place to shelter and rested as best they could. They also made very sure that they rationed their meager supplies of food and especially water.

Although none of them really knew what they were talking about, they figured that it would take a week to ten days to make it to the border. But what they had not figured out was that travelling by night is a very different proposition to the daytime.

Still, on and on they went until almost a week had gone by. Their supplies were dwindling fast, but they were still okay for a few more days at least. Then, on the eighth night, they had a remarkable stroke of luck. They came to a high wire fence. They had made it to the Iraq/Jordan border AND they had done it a couple of days quicker than estimated.

They were jubilant.

After congratulating each other all over the place, slapping backs and so forth, they set about digging their way under the fence. They hadn’t any tools with them, but it wasn’t a hard job and after twenty minutes or so they had cleared enough debris to allow them to slide underneath the wire, one at a time, and cross over into Jordanian territory.

When they had crossed the fence there were more celebrations. Then they rested for a little while, but not long. They were safe now, but the adrenalin boost caused by making it safely into Jordan was pulsing through their veins and they all agreed that they should press on and sooner or later they would encounter Jordanian border guards or make it to a village. Either way they could replenish their supplies and get a much needed clean up.

Sure enough, less than an hour or so later, as it was getting light they spotted an army jeep in the distance. They started waving and shouting and eventually the soldiers in the jeep spotted them and made their way over to where they were. A soldier, whom they supposed was the officer in charge got out of the jeep and walked over to them.

The leader of the escape gang, who spoke a little Arabic, welcomed the soldier, and as best he could explained that they were hostages and had just escaped across the border after several hard days and nights travelling through the desert.

The soldier grinned and then started to laugh. He said something to his comrades and they too began to laugh. The intrepid escapees joined in, not at all sure what they were laughing at, but assuming the Jordanian soldiers were happy that someone had pulled a fast one over the Iraqis.

Everyone was so happy.

The Jordanian commander told one of his men to send a radio message and a few moments later another jeep and a small canvas topped lorry arrived. The soldiers indicated that the six escapees should get into the back of the lorry, which they duly did and sat down three on each side on the small bench. Two of the soldiers got in along with them.  

And off they went. They drove for about ten minutes and then made it to a hard surfaced road. About another ten or fifteen minutes after that the escapees started to notice buildings. They had never seen a Jordanian village, but they assumed this was what they looked like. Then a short time later the lorry stopped.

The two soldiers jumped out first and indicated that the escapees should follow, which they did. But when they were on the ground and had gathered their wits about them they saw that there were a lot of people around, but they were all in uniform. There didn’t seem to be any civilians around at all.

Maybe they had been evacuated because of the imminent hostilities? They couldn’t really figure it out.

But then the penny slowly started to drop into place.

Our intrepid escapees had not made it across the border.

Nor were they in a Jordanian village.

What they had managed to do was march for days through the desert, probably in all directions but a straight line, and ended up still in Iraq.

Not only that but the fence they had encountered and carefully dug their way under wasn’t the border fence between Iraq and Jordan, it was the fence surrounding an Iraqi army camp. And that’s where they now were! These soldiers were Saddam’s troops, not Jordanians.

I really wish I could have seen the look of disbelief, confusion, disappointment and incredulity on their faces.

The Iraqis could have shot them. But they were so busy laughing they would probably have missed. Instead, after the hilarity had passed, they allowed the escapees to get cleaned up, probably more for soldiers’ benefit rather than the escapees, and then put them on another lorry to be driven back to Baghdad.

The great escape was over.

http://youtu.be/xkwmIDx9RwQ

Have you had similar experiences? Send them along. Let the world know what is happening before it is too late.

The Worst Airport Greeting In The World

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

This is a sort of follow on from yesterday’s blog about Mr Nicholas Scotti, the worst tourist in the world.

Today’s is about Mrs Josephine Williams and her family, who in 1975 went to meet a long-lost brother at Heathrow Airport (London).

Eventually the traveller wandered into the airport lounge, greatly relaxed by the in-flight drinking facilities, and was immediately smothered with the kisses of Mrs Williams and her sisters.

“Gee, this is great,” he kept saying, all the while cuddling Mrs Williams in a manner which she later described as “not like a brother.”

His enthusiasm for British hospitality was modified, however, when Mr Williams shook his hand firmly and ushered him to a parked car.

They first suspected that something might be amiss when their long-lost relative tried to jump out of the car while travelling at speed up the motorway.

When told that he was being taken to a family reunion in Coventry, he replied, “Take my money. Here’s my wallet. Take it and let me go.”

Slumped miserably in the front seat, he added, “This is the first time I have been to England and I am being kidnapped.”

“I thought from the beginning he wasn’t my brother,” Mrs Williams said later, “but my sisters wouldn’t listen. They said I was only twelve when he left for America and wouldn’t remember.”

They had taken home a complete stranger!  I don’t know if they ever met up with their brother or not.

 

The Worst Tourist In The World

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”


 I don’t know whether any of you have heard of Mr Nicholas Scotti?

I hadn’t until I read about him on the internet.

But his story is one that fits well into the ‘stupidity’ category that is one of the underlying themes of this blog.

Mr Scotti holds the title of being ‘The Worst Tourist In The World’, or certainly one of the least successful ones.

 Nicholas Scotti is of Italian descent and is from San Francisco, USA.

In 1977 he decided he would like to visit his relatives in his native Italy.

 An inexperienced traveller, Mr Scotti booked his vacation trip using a travel agent and on the appointed day made his way to the airport for the flight. Getting on a plane was a relatively easy and quick process back in 1977 (oh, those were the days!!), and Mr Scotti made it on to the plane without incident. He settled down for the long flight.

 En route the plane made a one-hour fuel stop at Kennedy Airport and the passengers disembarked.

 But Nicholas Scotti didn’t know about the re-fuelling stop. He thought that he had arrived in Rome, Italy.

He duly left the airport and spent two days in New York believing he was in Rome.

 When his nephews were not there to meet him, Mr Scotti just assumed they had been delayed in the heavy Rome traffic they had mentioned often in their letters.

 While tracking down their address, the great traveler could not help noticing that modernization and new construction had brushed aside most, if not all, of the ancient city’s famous landmarks, but that didn’t deter him.

 He also noticed that many people spoke English with a distinct American accent. However, he just assumed that Americans got everywhere. Furthermore, he assumed it was for their benefit that so many of the street signs were written in English.

 Mr Scotti spoke very little English himself and next asked a policeman (in Italian) the way to the bus depot. As chance would have it, the policeman came from Naples and replied fluently in Italian, which only helped to reinforce his belief that he was in Rome, not New York.

 After twelve hours travelling round on a bus, the driver got fed up with him and handed him over to a second policeman. This one was not Italian and a brief argument ensued during which Mr Scotti expressed amazement at the Rome police force employing someone who did not speak their own language.

 Scotti’s brilliance is seen in the fact that even when told he was in New York, he refused to believe it.

The man was a veritable genius!

 To get Mr Scotti on a plane back to San Francisco, he was raced to the airport in a police car with sirens screaming. Even then he remained unconvinced. “See,” he said to his interpreter, “I know I’m in Italy. That’s how they drive.”

The Worst Explorer In The World

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

Yesterday’s blog about poor Tommy getting lost reminded me of the story, about another Tommy funnily enough, this time a guy called Thomas Nuttall. I didn’t know this guy, just remembered reading about him first in a history book about explorers in America (the main thrust of the book was about the adventures of Lewis & Clark), and then later in a compilation of stories about people who weren’t a great success in their ventures.

Thomas Nuttall was around in the early 1800s and fancied himself as an explorer. He was also a zoologist and botanist whose main field of study was the flora of remote parts of North-West America.

The two callings went well together.

All apart from the fact that this intrepid explorer spent most of his time like his namesake in the field years later, completely lost.

Yes, Thomas Nuttall was the least successful explorer there has even been! Not only did he seem to get lost, this poor man actually seemed to be permanently lost.

For example, on an expedition in 1812 his colleagues frequently had to light beacons in the evening to help him find his way back to camp.

Another night he failed to return completely and a search party was sent out. As it approached him in the darkness Nuttall, who never seemed to get anything right, assumed they were Indians and tried to escape. The highly annoyed rescuers pursued him for three days through bush and river until, by complete accident Nuttall wandered back into their camp. 

On another occasion, lost again, he lay down on the ground exhausted. He looked so pathetic that a passing Indian, instead of scalping him, picked him up, carried him three miles to the river and paddled him home in a canoe.

Despite his awful sense of direction, or the fact that Pacific Fur Company traders had declared him crazy after finding dirt in the barrel of his gun (Nuttall had been using it to dig up plants), he was nevertheless one of the preeminent botanists of his day.

Have you had similar experiences? Send them along. Let the world know what is happening before it is too late.

Lost In The Fog

"Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy"

Tommy was just an ordinary bloke. When I got to know him he was getting on in years, in his late seventies I would guess. He was a nice man, very amiable, very kind and great chat. In fact that’s what Tommy liked to do best – chat. He could tell stories all night long.

Tommy was of a generation past who, like my dad, was brought up spending their evenings visiting their friends and having social interaction that did not involve computers, iphones, blackberries, laptops, skype, msn, goggle+, twitter, myface and spacebook or whatever they’re called. You know, all the paraphernalia that we don’t seem able to do without these days. Or maybe better, have become obsessed with these days.

He had been born in the countryside, on a small farm. Too small in fact to sustain the family economically, so when Tommy was of an age he was sent out to find work elsewhere, and elsewhere of course meant the city. Tommy did get himself a job, and a wife and a family and he spent the next forty years or so living in the city suburbs.

He was content enough with his life and so he should have been. He was never out of work, and raised a nice family, two boys and a girl who all of whom did well for themselves. Eventually they all got married and moved away to their own homes and a few years after that Tommy retired. That’s when he got the urge to return to the countryside where he had been born and raised.

So it was that Tommy and his wife bought a small-holding of a few acres in the countryside, quite close to where an uncle of mine lived at the time. Tommy and he were of a similar vintage and they quickly became friends, visiting each other’s houses frequently. Sometimes the get togethers were a bit more formal and the wives came along too. Other times Tommy would just wander across the fields on his own to visit and have a chat with my uncle. There were only three smallish fields between the two houses, whereas the trip via the road would have been at least five times the distance.

This routine went on for several years without noteworthy incident. Then one evening in late autumn Tommy wandered across the fields to talk to my uncle. Nothing unusual in that. They chatted away for several hours, probably had a few beers or a shot of whiskey, which they were both known to frequent, though not abuse.

When it was Tommy’s time to go home the fun started. He put on his jacket and hat and my uncle conveyed him to the back door, which he habitually used. It was more or less in a direct line to his own house. As Tommy was leaving it was getting fairly dark. There was no moonlight to speak of and a fog had started coming down.

I should point out here to people reading this who have never lived in the countryside that at night it is dark, I mean, DARK, very! In cities and towns and their suburbs there is usually street lighting and also an ambient glow that helps to keep real darkness away. In the countryside nothing but the odd light at someone’s house a long, long way off.

As Tommy was leaving my uncle’s house visibility was about ten yards ahead, and he had little trouble in getting to the first field gate and starting his journey back to his own house. He went on more or less on automatic pilot, he had done the journey so many times, and he made it into the second field without difficulty. But all the time he had been walking the fog had been descending and thickening. Now visibility was almost zero, and it was completely dark as well.

After you are out in the dark for a while your eyes adjust. That’s why soldiers and paratroopers and sailors use a red light before they venture out, to allow their night vision to kick in. But fog has a different and very disorienting effect if you aren’t used to it and we weren’t used to it, it maybe happened on this scale once a year, if that.

So there Tommy was in the middle of the second field, in the dark, with the fog, and he was completely lost. Completely!

He kept walking, and walking, and walking, and walking but he never made it to the edge of the field. If he had managed that he could have followed the hedge and fence until he got to a gate. But he never got to the hedge.

All he managed to make contact with that evening were stacks of hay bales that were set up in the field here and there, first to dry a little and then to be collected and brought into the barn.

It’s hard to say how many miles Tommy walked that night, but it could have been at least five, probably more. He was at it for hours. Walk….BUMFFF, into a stack of bales. Walk….BUMFFF, into another stack of bales. Walk….BUMFFF. Walk….BUMFFF. Walk….BUMFFF.

Eventually, fatigued, bewildered, and now frightened he would never see home again, he sat down at the next bunch of hay bales he walked into, pulled a few of them around him and fell asleep.

It was now after midnight and Tommy’s wife was getting anxious that he return home. It wasn’t unusual for him to be late getting back to his own house, once the two old fellas started to chat they could go at it for ages. But this was getting late even for him. My uncle told her that he had left shortly after nine o’clock. It was now approaching 1 am, and they both became alarmed, fearing the worst, that Tommy had become unwell on his walk back to the house.

By this time my uncle was in bed, but up he got, dressed, got himself a torch and away he went outside to look for Tommy. In the intervening three hours or so the fog hadn’t quite disappeared, but it had retreated substantially and visibility with the torch wasn’t too bad. My uncle got his dog, a collie who was delighted at the chance for a night stroll, and they both set off into the first field.

No sign of Tommy. My uncle shouted and shouted, but no response. He walked round the edge of the field, just to make sure Tommy hadn’t fallen into any of the ditches and maybe broken a leg. No, no Tommy.

Then into the next field. My uncle and the dog were just about to start the same process of walking round the periphery of the field again, but before they started he shone his torch in a sweeping motion across the field from right to left. He noticed one stack of hay bales knocked over. He moved his light a little more. Another stack of hay bales on the ground. Then another and another.

“What the hell?” he said to himself, as he surveyed the devastation.

You see, out of something like twenty-three stacks of hay bales, Tommy had managed to blunder into nineteen of them and knock them down. After every one he walked into he must have set off in a completely new direction, like a veritable pin ball he just ricocheted off one lot and meandered on until he hit another and so forth. I have known people with little sense of direction but this was just ridiculous!

They found Tommy a little while later. Well, the dog did first and then my uncle picked out the boots and lower parts of Tommy’s legs sticking out from below some of the upturned hay bales. He got him gathered up and conveyed him back to his own house. 

Tommy never did live that journey down. 

And he never did venture out in the fog again.

Have you had similar experiences? Send them along. Let the world know what is happening before it is too late.