Friday 15 August 2008

Believe It Or Not

True Questions asked of staff in public places:

A woman came into a local branch of Waterstones, pointed to The Diary Of Anne Frank and asked "Have you got anything else that she wrote?" (I kid you not)

A tourist at Osbourne House, Isle Of Wight: "Is this where Sharon and Ozzie actually live?"

Another tourist to English Heritage: "How long does life membership last?"

At Whitby Abbey: "Why did they build so many ruined castles?"

At Kenwood House: "Does my ferret need to be on a lead in this area?"

A tourist came into a castle in the UK and asked what the unusal object on display was:
GUIDE: That is the death-mask of Oliver Cromwell
TOURIST: Wow!...and on what occasion would he have worn that?

And you think YOUR job is bad...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2534484/Tourists-most-embarrassing-questions-revealed-by-English-Heritage.html

6 comments:

Roxanne said...

Hilarious. I liked this one: "Why did they build so many ruined castles?".

It reminded me of a time when I was travelling in Athens; we were at the Acropolis and a lady on my tour said, "Don't you think this would be more interesting, if they rebuilt it on top of these ruins on how it was supposed to look like?"

(I refrained from telling her that would defeat the purpose, and if she wanted that, she could go to Vegas and see the Eiffel Tower and Venice while she was at it) ...

We had a list of things like that of things our park rangers heard in our national park of Banff - (rocky mountains).
"When did you build the glaciers?"

"At what elevation does an elk become a moose?"

"Are the bears with collars tame?"

My favorite: "What's the best way to see Canada in a day?"

And one for you - DFTP: "When we enter British Columbia, do we have to convert our money to British pounds?" (well, we after all, are a british colony!)

raccoonlover1963/Lisa Myers said...

That is too funny! although it seems that the way they build houses and other structures any more, they could be considered ruins!
Lisa

Lydia said...

ok, now I'm laughing! First at your post, then at Honour's comments. (Banff is so beautiful and deserving of intelligent tourists!)

Don't Feed The Pixies said...

Honour - thanks for making me laugh :) The Waterstones and Oliver Cromwell stories actually happened to people that i know/knew

Lisa - i know exactly what you mean. Modern builders seem unable to do more than show half their bums, whistle and say "It'll cost you"

Lydia - glad to know you enjoyed. I would love to see somewhere like Banff

Samurai - i agree...though in fairness the English Heritage did stress that they felt there was no such thing as a stupid question (the evidence would appear to prove them wrong)

Hanna said...

That is flippen hilarious! I choked on my bean sandwich!
I feel sorry for the people who work at these pulic places though. xD
Haha Honour made me laugh a lot too.

Don't Feed The Pixies said...

Jenny - hope you recovered from the choking!