Perhaps Australian hotel owners could use this Management course:
 

I guess that this will last 5 minutes before disappearing as it will offend some - so if you are offended at the slightest bad language please do not read any further folks- you have been warned!

Two minute management course

Lesson One
An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing.
A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do
nothing?"
The eagle answered: "Sure, why not."
So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested.
All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

Management Lesson -
To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

Lesson Two
A turkey was chatting with a bull. "I would love to be able to get to the
top of that tree," sighed the turkey, "but I haven't got the
energy."
Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?" replied the
bull. They're packed with nutrients."
The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough
strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree.
The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.
Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of
the tree.
He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.

Management Lesson -
Bull shit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.

Lesson Three
A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold, the
bird froze and fell to the ground into a large field.
While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him.
As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to
realize how warm he was. The dung was actually thawing him out!
He lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy.
A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate.
Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung,
and promptly dug him out and ate him.

Management Lesson -
(1) Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.
(2) Not everyone who gets you out of the shit is your friend.
(3) And when you're in deep shit, it's best to keep your mouth shut!
This ends your two minute management course.

Thank you Liz,
That raised a chuckle here.
Its been a good couple of days for chuckling, what with the andrews89.6 and m_Kingdom 2 on the Euro Forum.
Keep up the good work

Muck

Very funny.

By the way Liz, you may remember we were going to S.America in February when we had to cancel because of fear of dengue fever which Bill already had and he makes a possible candidate for a second more lethal bout. (Can't take him anywhere.)

Well that left almost nowhere warm/hot for us to go to this winter so we ended up almost signing on the dotted line for Portugal's Algave when x-rays taken showed I have severe arthritis in the knees so we have to wait until I see a specialist.

But I'm determined to go even if I have to crawl there (we've travelled often in Portugal business/pleasure) for a month to get away from Toronto weather.

Still enjoy (lurking mostly) on this board.

Michi, Sorry to hear about your knee. I can empathize as I am limping about w/ a blood clot (delayed reaction to that close encounter w/ harbor cannon in Sydney) and 2 broken toes from Thanksgiving accident; too much turkey tryptofan.
Hope you moving about better soon.

AndrewDavid

PS if you can get a look at the Dec 4 Vancouver Sun, I'm interviewed in an article about immigrating to Canada.

A/D, I was distressed to discover that the mercenary Vancouver Sun wants $9.99/mth from me to access the article. Do you have a copy?

On the subject of matters Canadian(albeit a bit tangential), last weekend we caught up with "Festival Express", a great doco about the 1970 trek-by-train from Toronto to Calgary of a galaxy of stars including Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, The Band, the Buddy Guy Blues Band, a Canadian act with the impressive name of Ian & Sylvia & The Great Speckled Bird (how many tokes did that take?), Sha Na Na and others. I wasn't paying much attention to these people at the time (although I did see The Band backing the wretchedly surly Bob Dylan in Sydney in the late '60s) and was impressed by their musicianship, not to mention their bodies' ability to survive assaults by so many chemical substances. Regrettably this was shortlived in the case of Joplin, Jerry Garcia and several others, who all left for the big gig in the sky within months of that tour. BTW, the two extended songs by Joplin, as wasted as she was, were worth the $7 admission (sorry, workers, that's my Seniors Club price).

AD

Please add me to the list of "wannasees" of your Vancouver Sun interview at [email protected]

The Toronto Star had an article Friday "Scholars breathe fresh air"about a husband/wife professors now teaching at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario) where they have found a true home from after "fleeing from a repressive climate." Let me know if you want it and send me your fax.

As far as coming to Canada, my son the architect may be able to offer you employment in Whitehorse where his business is currently thriving. The temp is -24C at the moment. He and his business partner (Kobayashi + Zedda) enjoy some architectural notoriety and have been recognized with some awards particularly for their use of wood and work with First Nations people. They are two young punks making statements, presentations of their work.

There is/was a movement on I believe about Americans wanting to come to Canada and a Canadian urging us to adopt an American. AD, I already have six kids, eleven grandchildren, and two "adopted" sons.

Thanks to Liz for letting us run away with her post.

I TAKE IT ALL BACK! I AM SORRY TO ALL AUSTRALIAN HOTEL OWNERS - I WILL EAT CROW FOR A LONG TIME - I HAVE JUST SURVIVED LAS VEGAS HOTELS AND NOW KNOW THE WINNER OF THE 2004 OXYMORON AWARDS - Las Vegas Hospitality Industry or Las Vegas Service Industry.
Thought this little gem was worth sharing:
In the Excalibur Hotel, Las Vegas I tried to turn on the Internet connection which costs $9.95 for the day. However it would not work so phoned down to Reception for help. Up came a "service person" who took away the console and about one hour later brought another - still things would not work so I phoned Reception again and was told I had to phone the repair people which was an outside number, "'cuse me says I, dunno if you realise this but I am the guest here are you really asking me to phone the service people?" "Yes, its an outside company and you have to call them yourself", was the reply. So "gobsmacked" me phones the service company and was told that they would arrange a "service person" to check it out. To cut short the story, no-one ever came to fix it and I did ask the hotel Reception what happens when the toilet backs up but they did not seem to think that was funny!
Yes I know ya'll are going to say that anyone who goes to Las Vegas is asking for it but this took the biscuit I thought.
BUT THERE'S MORE!
Second prize for the 2004 oxymoron awards is " American Airline Services" I am sure that you don't need to be told that anyway but thought I would mention it as I had a little flight from Las Vegas to Atlanta to do which finally took me 26 hours and via Charlotte, Miami, Philadephia, Denver and finally back to Las Vegas - my major complaint there was that if a flight is cancelled why the hell can they not let you know before you race off at 4AM for the blasted thing only to be told that you have to wait for 6 hours for some other connection???????
I would not have minded so much if I had been fed or if I had been reimbursed for having to extend a child-minding service for 12 hours whilst I flew around the USA.

There's only one thing to do when that happens to you, Liz.... demand a free dessert!

My favourite along these lines was Montevideo, Uruguay, on a blistering hot day. The hotel had cheap rooms that were non-AC, but for about 40% more you could get a room with AC. For once, we decided to splurge and paid the extra. Well, the AC didn't work, so I thought we'd better report that interesting news to the proprietress. She was quite aware of this, however, but didn't think this in any way changed the contract; after much pleading from me, she offered, as a consolation, to put in one of those tiny heater fans which we could operate with the heat turned off. You can imagine how effective that was.

The next day we got the bill, and we were still charged the 40% surcharge for air conditioning. I deducted it and paid the ordinary "base" price for the room, explaining why. Her response, of course, was to short-change me! Well, we finally got that straightened out, but I didn't get my free dessert! (By the way, it wasn't a five-star hotel, if I recall.... the room didn't even have a window!)

Streuth Alan I forgot about the desert! I won't forget however about that warning on hotels in Montivideo!