Community ClicksUnited Kingdom ninnies
Macdonald Portal Golf and Spa Hotel (Cheshire, England) declined to provide a toothpick to a dinner guest on New Year’s Day (to dislodge a piece of meat between his teeth) because the facility’s manager said she believes that toothpicks are safety hazards.
>>> Citing restrictions of Scotland’s Strathclyde Fire and Rescue force, a supervisor ordered firefighters on the scene not to attempt to rescue the 44-year-old woman who had accidentally fallen into a well.
The restrictions require that only certified “mountain rescuers” are authorized to climb into wells.
The nearest squad did not arrive for six hours, and the woman died.
>>> Mirko Fischer, 33, filed a lawsuit against British Airways in January for separating him from his wife, even though they had valid tickets for adjacent seats.
BA regulations forbid seating an adult next to an unaccompanied minor, and thus Fischer, with wife on one side and 12-year-old boy on the other, was removed to the only open seat, far away from his wife.
Cultural diversity
One of the world’s longest-running TV comedy shows (according to an April Reuters dispatch from South Korea) is the weekly North Korean production “It’s So Funny,” with its undynamic format of a man and a woman in military uniforms talking to each other (though they sometimes sing and dance).
The latest episode “extolled the virtue of beans,” wrote the Reuters stringer, “while avoiding any flatulence humor.”
“If we soldiers see beans, we become happy,” said the man, leading both hosts to laugh.
According to Reuters, “The two talk about how bean-fed North Korean soldiers were able to fight off U.S. imperialist troops during the Korean war.”
Questionable judgements
In March, an employment tribunal in Sydney, Australia, awarded pilot Bryan Griffin damages of $160,000 (Aus.) (U.S. equivalent, $208,000) because Qantas, for which he worked from 1966 to 1982, had allowed him to continue flying from 1979 to 1982 with depression and anxiety attacks that caused him nearly to deliberately crash his aircraft.
As a result of continuing to work, he had several more episodes which exacerbated his condition (and, obviously, placed his passengers in jeopardy).
In January, the principal of D. Roy Kennedy Public School in Ottawa, Ontario, banned “ball-playing” anywhere on school grounds, declaring that it is too dangerous.
