WHILE IT is impossible to satisfy all of the people all of the time, to misquote Abe Lincoln, some people are just never happy any of the time, it seems. Take this lot of customers of web-based UK holiday firm Sunshine.
Upon arrival in Portugal, one family complained that the sunny weather was making them too “hot and sweaty” in their holiday clothes.
One man informed staff of his irritation at the number of holidaymakers who travelled with plain black suitcases, hindering his attempts to find his own plain black suitcase on the airport conveyor belt.
Following a trip to a local theme park, a woman wrote to the travel agent to complain that the log-flume ride made her feet wet and the sun was so strong that her ice cream melted too quickly. One couple criticised the excellent children’s entertainment at their resort – it was so good, in fact, that their children didn’t want to spend any time with their parents.
Another couple claimed that the lunchtime cocktails at their resort were surprisingly strong, leaving them rather worse for wear during the afternoon.
“As much as we would like to guarantee that any problem will be dealt accordingly to prevent it from happening again, the weather, the alcohol being too strong, ice cream being too cold or planes flying too high are unfortunately completely out of our control,” said a spokesman for Sunshine.
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ON THE matter of junkets, word has reached Magpie’s ear of one being organised by Nama (didn’t take them long, eh?).
It’s to America, no less (appropriate, one supposes, given that the subprime toxic loan mess began there), to Lafayette in Louisiana. “A Cajun holiday, with a French twist,” gushes an internal Nama document in the possession of Magpie. The French twist includes, apparently, zydeco, a form of dancing.
A whiff of restraint may be detected, however, from the fact that junketeers will be put up in Lafayette’s Holiday Inn, a far cry from the five-star glory days of yore when Rody Molloy and John O’Donoghue whooped it up at the taxpayers’ expense.
Nama’s bumph notes that the “recently remodelled” hotel is “graciously providing enough space for all of our programs”. These include “forays in several state parks, including one at . . . the Louisiana state arboretum”.
It gets better: “We will also have the opportunity to collect mushrooms on nature conservancy property and on private lands. We anticipate some unusual fungi that thrive in this subtropical environment.”
“Unusual fungi”, eh? That’s it! Those flahoolick eejits in the banks were on magic mushrooms!
Further information available from Judy Roger of Nama, that’s the North American Mycological Association, in Gladstone, Oregon.
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THE WISCONSIN Tourism Federation has changed its name, after realising its acronym, WTF, had become crude internet slang.
The body charged with attracting visitors to the midwestern US state will now be known as the Tourism Federation of Wisconsin (TFW). It was apparently unaware of the cyber-age meaning of WTF until its acronym featured on a blog that compiles unfortunate corporate logos.
Commenters wondered whether an expression of foul-mouthed astonishment was the best way of boosting tourism to a state that would not be an obvious choice for most holidaymakers.
