The perils of being a Fawlty Towers fan

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 28 April 2005 21:00:44

Ok, so this 1970s comedy may only have had 12 episodes, but sometimes it really feels like I'm living in the middle of it! Let me elaborate...

A few weeks ago, I was involved in hosting a conference at a nearby hotel. The 2 days were filled with so many chaotic episodes that it was christened "Fawlty Towers" by several of the delegates. And they hadn't heard the conversation I had with one of the staff earlier, whose English was desperately lacking...
Me: "Hi. I'm with the conference upstairs. We've been asked to hand in a list of people's choices for dinner tonight, so the chef can start preparing them"
Staff member: "You want dinner?" (said in confused tone of voice)
Me: "No, not right now." (slightly puzzled) "There's about 60 of us, we're all here for dinner tonight, and the chef asked us to tell him in advance what we wanted to eat. I've got the list here"
Staff member: "Sorry?"
Me: "Um, is C here?" (C being sensible staff member I'd spoken to earlier)
Staff member: "Yes" (in very relieved tone of voice)
I have to admit, I was expecting to hear a "Que?" in good Manuel-style any minute, and was struggling to keep a straight face.

OK, one incident...you may think it's nothing. However, having had one friend who has previously named a pet rat "Izzy" (as in "Is no rat...."), I now find that the hamster I'm getting in a couple of days will finish off the phrase beautifully, being a Siberian hamster! What are the chances of me managing to name it anything other than "Fili" (as in..."is filigree Siberian hamster")!

And then it got even silier, when the Brownies decided what to call their leaders on Pack Holiday last week. With a theme of "In the Garden", I was all for us being Slug, Worm, Ant and Earwig- or something similar, but the others just weren't as keen. So we've ended up as herbs, and how I'm going to manage to address Brown Owl as "Basil" without putting on a Prunella Scales type voice is beyond me!

Oh, and one of my colleagues at work manages to have a temper tantrum that is remarkably similar to Basil Fawlty's outbursts...