Chapter Three : AGAINST ALL ODDS
This chapter contain some of the most embarassing moments in history.
Buglars who do noghitn but bungle, intimate amorous advantures that suddenly become public performances and experts who seem to attract disaster create the kind of unbelievable situations recounted in these pages, which seem to occur against all odds.
Don't count on it
Derek Howell pain 85,000 pounds for a newsagent's shop in Hastings, Sussex, just to have access to the parking space for his Rolls-Royce. Then he discovered his 40,000 pounds pride and joy was too wide to fit in it
)
Customers were delighted with the bonus they receive from a cash dispenser at a New York bank. A cashier had put 20 dollar bills in the five dollar slot and card holders got four times what they asked for. No one got away with it thoug. Their names had all been recorded with their transaction [-x
A Durham museum hurriedly removed a Roman coin from display when a little boy spotted it was a free plastic token from a soft-drink company
A mugger thought he was on to a winner when he tackled a betting shop worker carrying two plastic bag. He was able to snatch only one, and made off down the road with his taking. When he felt safe, he took a look at his haul and found he had stolen a bag of dirty washing. The day's takings from the shop were in the other bag)
Once bitten
When Joseph Begley of Evesham, Worcestershire, send off 2,000 cigarette coupons for a watch, nothing happended. He wrote to comlain, and within three days, 10 parcels had arrived from the cigarette company. The next day there were 18. The next day, 10 more. By this time, Begley had received three tape recorders, a golf bag, a pressure cooker, two electric blankets, a baby's cot, adoll and many other things he didn't really want. Running out of space, he asked the company to stop sending him gifts. They replied - with a letter of appology and 10,000 coupons to make up for his inconvenience.
He send them off, ordering tools and bedspread. By return came two ladders and a pland stand :roflmao:
Mr Begley swapped his brand of cigarettes.
Every newspaper takes pains to prevent it, but sometimes the same item is published twice. The Scotsman seems to have gone one better. An Edinburgh reader wrote this letter to the editor. 'Sir, I not with interest that you have published my letter of 13 June three time (so far) this week. I'm pleased that you like it so much but if the letter is to become a regular feature in The Scotsman I'd appreciate a small fee by way of acknowledgement. May I add tha I prove of your use of different headings each time the letter is published. This stops it becoming too stale or repetitive. Let me know if your readers grow tired of the letter and I'll send you a fresh one.'
Reluctant soldier Peter Lenz of Nuremberg, West Germany, thought he had the perfect ruse of dodging call-up. He went for his medical with a urine sample from his girlfriend, a diabetic. But a few days later, Peter receive orders to report for duty. A covering letter said: 'We would have believed you were a diabetic - but not that you are pregnant.' [-x
Shipbuilders scratched their heads when they surveyed their latest bit of work on a nuclear submarine. Something didn't look quite right. Then the awful truth dawned. They had welded a large section upside down! A senior union member of Vickers in Barrow, Cumbria, described the mis-match as a 'monumental cock-up'. The mistake is thought to have happended when a section of the vessel arrived without proper identification. Workers had to re-weld the part. Ironically, the submarine was named Triumph. 'It was very embarrassing,' said a Vicers spokeman, and decline to say what the mistake cost the taxpayer.
The man from the ministry was just explaining why he didn't consider a notorious blackspot dangerous. But his firm words: 'I will not accept that this is a highly dangerous road' were interupted by three cars pilling up behind him. Jim Davidson from the Ministry of Transport carried on talking as first a blue estate car in the background rand off the road and up a steep grassy slope, followed by a screeech of brakes as the second car, swerving to avoid the estate, smashed in to the back of another vehicle. The whole scence was captured on TV and broadcast to millions of ITN early evening news viewers. Mr Davidson's crash course took place when he visited the A19 near Peterlee, Durham.
Passenger on a Britania Airways flight from Zurich to Gatwick listened in horror as a stewardess announced the plain was about to ditch in the sea. She explained the emergency procedure, as white-faced passengers listened in terrified silence for two minute [-o<
Then the voice of the captain came over the intercom. 'It was a mistake. We were meant to tell you we were about to serve the duty frees.' The wrong pre-recoreded tape had been played.
Irishman Bredan Murphy, 25, was caught on the hop when he raided a shoe shop in Bedford. He swopped his worn-out training shoes for a classy 29 pounds pair of cowboy boots. But staff had no trouble spotting him when he tried to make a getaway, wearing two right boots, one size nine, and the other size 11) Murphy was put on probation by the town's magistrates.
This chapter contain some of the most embarassing moments in history.
Buglars who do noghitn but bungle, intimate amorous advantures that suddenly become public performances and experts who seem to attract disaster create the kind of unbelievable situations recounted in these pages, which seem to occur against all odds.
Don't count on it
Derek Howell pain 85,000 pounds for a newsagent's shop in Hastings, Sussex, just to have access to the parking space for his Rolls-Royce. Then he discovered his 40,000 pounds pride and joy was too wide to fit in it
)Customers were delighted with the bonus they receive from a cash dispenser at a New York bank. A cashier had put 20 dollar bills in the five dollar slot and card holders got four times what they asked for. No one got away with it thoug. Their names had all been recorded with their transaction [-x
A Durham museum hurriedly removed a Roman coin from display when a little boy spotted it was a free plastic token from a soft-drink company
A mugger thought he was on to a winner when he tackled a betting shop worker carrying two plastic bag. He was able to snatch only one, and made off down the road with his taking. When he felt safe, he took a look at his haul and found he had stolen a bag of dirty washing. The day's takings from the shop were in the other bag
)Once bitten
When Joseph Begley of Evesham, Worcestershire, send off 2,000 cigarette coupons for a watch, nothing happended. He wrote to comlain, and within three days, 10 parcels had arrived from the cigarette company. The next day there were 18. The next day, 10 more. By this time, Begley had received three tape recorders, a golf bag, a pressure cooker, two electric blankets, a baby's cot, adoll and many other things he didn't really want. Running out of space, he asked the company to stop sending him gifts. They replied - with a letter of appology and 10,000 coupons to make up for his inconvenience.
He send them off, ordering tools and bedspread. By return came two ladders and a pland stand :roflmao:
Mr Begley swapped his brand of cigarettes.
Every newspaper takes pains to prevent it, but sometimes the same item is published twice. The Scotsman seems to have gone one better. An Edinburgh reader wrote this letter to the editor. 'Sir, I not with interest that you have published my letter of 13 June three time (so far) this week. I'm pleased that you like it so much but if the letter is to become a regular feature in The Scotsman I'd appreciate a small fee by way of acknowledgement. May I add tha I prove of your use of different headings each time the letter is published. This stops it becoming too stale or repetitive. Let me know if your readers grow tired of the letter and I'll send you a fresh one.'
Reluctant soldier Peter Lenz of Nuremberg, West Germany, thought he had the perfect ruse of dodging call-up. He went for his medical with a urine sample from his girlfriend, a diabetic. But a few days later, Peter receive orders to report for duty. A covering letter said: 'We would have believed you were a diabetic - but not that you are pregnant.' [-x
Shipbuilders scratched their heads when they surveyed their latest bit of work on a nuclear submarine. Something didn't look quite right. Then the awful truth dawned. They had welded a large section upside down! A senior union member of Vickers in Barrow, Cumbria, described the mis-match as a 'monumental cock-up'. The mistake is thought to have happended when a section of the vessel arrived without proper identification. Workers had to re-weld the part. Ironically, the submarine was named Triumph. 'It was very embarrassing,' said a Vicers spokeman, and decline to say what the mistake cost the taxpayer.
The man from the ministry was just explaining why he didn't consider a notorious blackspot dangerous. But his firm words: 'I will not accept that this is a highly dangerous road' were interupted by three cars pilling up behind him. Jim Davidson from the Ministry of Transport carried on talking as first a blue estate car in the background rand off the road and up a steep grassy slope, followed by a screeech of brakes as the second car, swerving to avoid the estate, smashed in to the back of another vehicle. The whole scence was captured on TV and broadcast to millions of ITN early evening news viewers. Mr Davidson's crash course took place when he visited the A19 near Peterlee, Durham.
Passenger on a Britania Airways flight from Zurich to Gatwick listened in horror as a stewardess announced the plain was about to ditch in the sea. She explained the emergency procedure, as white-faced passengers listened in terrified silence for two minute [-o<
Then the voice of the captain came over the intercom. 'It was a mistake. We were meant to tell you we were about to serve the duty frees.' The wrong pre-recoreded tape had been played.
Irishman Bredan Murphy, 25, was caught on the hop when he raided a shoe shop in Bedford. He swopped his worn-out training shoes for a classy 29 pounds pair of cowboy boots. But staff had no trouble spotting him when he tried to make a getaway, wearing two right boots, one size nine, and the other size 11
) Murphy was put on probation by the town's magistrates.
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