My recent post about Improv Everywhere‘s prank at Grand Central has been off the charts: it just broke the 1 million hits mark and gathered 1,200 forwards and 60-odd comments in just three weeks.
So backed by popular demand, I bring you part two of the performance-art group’s “frozen in time” prank. This time, it’s London and because a lot more people showed up, it looks every more impressive.
When in Wales, be careful about calling Welsh people English– or you might land yourself a prison sentence. Just ask Mick Forsythe (pictured right).
During a dispute over a traffic accident, Forsythe, an Irishman living in Wales, insulted a Welsh woman, calling her an “English bitch.” According to the Daily Mail, the 55-year-old Forsythe “was found guilty of racially aggravated disorderly behaviour, and received a ten-week prison sentence suspended for 12 months.”
I imagine the conversation as going something like this:
“Hey, you just scratched my car!”
“Oh, pipe down, you old English bitch.”
“Excuse me?! I am NOT English!”
Forsythe expressed his thoughts about the whole affair thusly: “The joke is that the woman I had the row with isn’t even English. She’s Welsh. I am absolutely gobsmacked, to be frank.”
I too am gobsmacked.
More here.
Despite the weak dollar, the number of Brits visiting America is down 11% since 9/11. As this blog by The Guardian suggests, traveling to the US is just too much hassle these days.
The author, Ed Vulliamy, who travels frequently between London and the US, sounds quite angry about the whole thing: “And now here comes a new bag of tricks from Washington’s Department of Homeland Security: demanding to be informed of everything about you – by yourself and your government – before you try and buy a ticket, even if you are merely flying over America,” he writes. “Who the hell wants to apply online for permission to visit the US before even buying a ticket? Why should information on a friend or relative pushing a passenger in a wheelchair to the gate at Prestwick be dispatched to the CIA?”
One of his points especially struck me. He says that “the paranoia and war on terror, of which the new travel measures are part – have robbed and abused the emotional power and dignity of New York’s response to al-Qaeda’s murderous visit that morning: the carpets of flowers, the tributes, the missing posters and peace signs. This kind of language, this paranoia and manipulation of what happened has nothing to do with the real best of America. And godammit, that’s why it is still worth braving.”
It is hard to argue with that.
I’ve never understood people’s fuss over the water they drink when they go to hotels, let alone their willingness to pay for what is otherwise free in most western countries. When I’m out in cities where you can drink tap water, that’s what I ask for; when I have to buy mineral water, I ask for the cheapest.
Water is water is water. Having said that, I agree that sometimes the taste is distinct. For example, here in Madrid, mineral water Bezoya and Aquafina taste strange to me; I will drink them if I have to, but I avoid buying those brands — I don’t like water that tastes like something (it’s not supposed to taste like anything!), but otherwise I’m not fussed. The whole “tap water isn’t good for you” conundrum doesn’t phase me in any way.
It totally ruffles my feathers when I go to a posh hotel and people I go with actually have a preference of mineral water, so I would go absolutely bonkers if I went to Claridge’s Luxury Hotel in London and was given a water menu with 30 international brands to choose from. 30!
According to a recent article in the BBC: For the most refined palette there is fine artesian water from Japan at $30 a bottle and $40 a bottle, or Mahaolo from Hawaii, described on the menu as “rare deep sea water” that is “very old.” And Just Born Spring Drops from India is apparently “light and not aggressive,” at $42 per bottle.
WHAT!? THAT’S MORE EXPENSIVE THAN A GOOD BOTTLE OF WINE! And this stuff sells?
“We wouldn’t do this if there wasn’t a demand for it,” says the hotel’s public relations manager. Apparently guests not only ask for berg or glacial water, but water with no sodium content or water fortified with calcium and magnesium; they even specify the region from where they want the water! “People are so very, very careful about what they eat these days that it’s moved into water.”
Have I completely lost perspective here or do you find this as absurd as I do?
The advantage of the trademark London double decker buses is that they fit a lot of people and provide a great view (for tourists, this is a big plus). The disadvantage is that, sometimes, they apparently don’t fit where a regular bus would, according to BBC today.
This morning, the number 24 bus was diverted diverted along Prince of Wales Road because of a major fire at Camden market on Saturday. There was a sign instructing drivers to use the middle of the road, hence the highest point of the bridge.
However, this bus driver clearly didn’t follow instructions and crashed into a railway bridge in North London, injuring 6 passengers when the roof was pulled off the vehicle and all the windows popped out. Ouch!
###
Is flying more your thing? Maybe not to these airports:
%Gallery-14790%
