at least it’s over

something light for the weekend.
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From The Far Eastern Economics Review
Issue cover-dated December 25, 2003 – January 01, 2004

TRAVELERS’ TALES

At Least It’s Over

This year will go down in the annals of absurdity as one of the most
memorable in recent history
By Nury Vittachi

Movie of the year:
The box office take of Psychedelic Cop, a Hong Kong movie, was astonishingly low at $16, making it possibly the biggest flop of all time. A total of 10 people saw it during a one-week run.

Worst press junket:
Journalists who turned up at the airport for an inaugural flight from Bangladesh to Thailand were taken on the trip–by road. The airline did not want to splash out on air tickets.

Unluckiest thief:
This title goes to the Australian snatch-thief who stole a bag in Sydney containing a large, poisonous snake. Police were looking for an open sack and a corpse.

Scariest thriller:
After the midnight showing of horror movie Bhoot (Ghost) in a New Delhi cinema, cleaners found a 50-year-old film fan dead in his seat.

Most precise warning:
Drivers of Dazhong taxis in Shanghai put signs in their passenger compartments “Psychos or drunkards without guardians are prohibited to take taxis.”

Business people of the year:
This award goes to the salesmen at Aderans of Osaka, a baldness-remedyfirm, who sold $21,000 worth of wigs to a Japanese man with a full head of hair.

Worst travel experience:
Illicit firm Mukha Airways offered cut-price travel for visitors going from mainland China to Hong Kong without visas. Passengers were stuffed into soft-sided wheelie bags and trundled across the border.

Thoughtful family award:
This title goes to a couple in Tianjin, China who offered a fortune to any man who would marry their household ghost, who they believed was lonely.

Feeblest excuse:
Australian motorist Robert James Thompson, 59, tried to escape driving penalties by claiming that his wife committed the offences, despite the fact that she died four years earlier.

Wizard of Oz award:
This goes to Britz, a dog who was picked up by a tornado from a New Zealand town and put down in the countryside. It took him 10 hours to walk home.

Worst fitness programme:
This award goes to 72-year-old Yan, a Chinese man who decided to walk backwards for his health and marched straight into a lake.

Oscar for best make-up:
We give this title to the thief on the run from police in Nagoya, Japan who decided to disguise himself as a schoolgirl, despite being a stocky 1.75-metre male with heavy five o’clock shadow.

Most patient consumer:
Mohammad Ismail of Bangladesh paid for a telephone line and waited for the engineer to come and install it–for 27 years. Staff this year installed the line ordered in 1976.

Worst timing:
Chan Kwok-keung, 34, pleaded not guilty to theft charges he was facing at a hearing in Hong Kong, but took the opportunity to steal the court official’s handbag.

Slowest on the uptake:
The winner of this title is the unobservant man at a ski resort in Nara, Japan, who failed to notice that his friend had fallen to his death out of the ski lift they were sharing.

Best revenge:
After Marjorie Robinson of Victoria, Australia, was attacked by a ram, her family caught the beast and presented it to the victim as a dish of roast mutton.

Never mind global warming. The human race’s absurdity ratio is reaching new highs. Believe me, 2004 is going to be a doozy.

Happy New Year.

FEER