I once attended a conference at the Hyatt Sanctuary Cove (not a million miles from LizF when she's at home) and remember being impressed by their service ethic. One night a few of us ended up playing cards in someone's room at an ungodly hour and when one of our number decided to move from beer to coffee was puzzled to find no instant coffee makings in the room. He got on the phone, whereupon it was politely explained that people wanting coffee ay the Hyatt ordered the real thing from room service, and paid accordingly. Our friend, not normally a habitue of the better class of hotel, voiced his disapproval of this money-grubbing approach and in protest decided to return to beer. (Needless to say we'd stocked up in order to avoid paying the bloodcurdling mini-bar prices.)

The nest thing the duty manager was on the blower, expressing his concern that we'd had a less than satisfactory experience and offering FOC coffee all night if we wanted it. Obviously the service philosophy there was that the staff had the authority to mollify an unhappy guest as best they could. It may not have been the Ritz, but their approach was fully commensurate with the prices they were charging.

...and Liz, I may think of your sybaritic lifestyle as I down yet another Tsingtao.

michi, I approve of the ruling classes getting a self-imposed taste of their own medicine (Henry II submitting to a scourging over the killing of Thomas a'Becket was even better) but I see no reason to emulate the emperors.

and Liz, I may think of your sybaritic lifestyle as I down yet another Tsingtao.
Obviously Neil having been an Argonaut with the ABC when I was 6 went to my head!

I plead not guilty, Your Honour.

Dear Margo,
After working hard to make your election safe and sound, you can head over here for some R&R and watch our bad joke of an election

A/D

Margo

Either Fodors forums were down or the editors no longer wish to print my post of this morning. Andrew/David got ahead of me.

I wanted to tell you to expect Andrew/David for your election day to vote on Neil's behalf since he takes great pleasure in voting in other people's countries.

A great number of us here in Canada watch the proceedings south of our border with great trepidation. Perhaps the Australian forum gang should vote in the US election.

Cheers.

Dear Michi,
If you get down here before Oct 3 you can register as resident in our guest bedroom. However as a masquerading asian american you (as well as hispanics and blacks) may be challenged at the polls, And believe me no one is worried about Republicans being disenfranchished, but they live by different rules than the rest of us poor slobs now adays

AndrewDavid

I hope you don't want us Welsh to vote too, I suppose we should as its our fault you have elections in the first place in USA,probably Oz too.
However we are far too busy looting in London now all the police are otherwise engaged with all leave cancelled; encircling Parliament and Buck house.
After all it wouldn't be right for the pro hunt lobby to escape especially after the cops beat two shades of sh*t out of them the other day, and who would have guessed that Batman would need a ladder to scale the fortified walls of BP.All my illusions are shattered. And where was Robin when he needed him.
Muck

Excuse my ignorance after all these posts but what is a boffin? It's not in my Australian slang book.

I know we're trying to wind this down but don't do it before you tell me what it means.

A boffin is an English word for a scientist in particular one that carries out Military research.

Muck

Sometimes used when speaking about "ones who control things behind the scenes" the "nameless, faceless ones in control of something".
Its not used much anymore in any form but loosely used as I did in a slightly unkind way.
Picture this:
Two greying, older type of men, hunched over a couple of computers deciding which post to delete or whether to edit something that may be politically incorrect to some degree, probably saying " humph, huh, fart, hmmmm I think that Alan is over the top this week, shall we pull his thread"? The other one says " oh no, lets see if he can suck in LizF or that crazymina for a fight as this is our only fun for the week"

hehehe Liz. That's funny. I actually pictured two young, no-life computer geeks. But the rest of it would be just like you said!