Fawlty Towers Mob Hits Back
The Sunday Age
Sunday December 30, 2001
MEMO: Australian cricket team management (and postal officer).
FROM: International Hotel Porters Guild (OK, we don't actually exist yet, but we're working on it).
JUST A quick note to express our displeasure at again being painted as the guilty party after another of your ``accidents" at one of our establishments in Melbourne last week, when your most private thoughts mysteriously found their way under the door of a guest who, surprise, surprise, happened to be a journalist.
You see and hear a lot in our job, gentlemen. Cricket writers being referred to as ``the turd dropped by the dog that is the Australian media" (or something like that) has become as familiar to our ears as, ``Hey, Manuel, fetch my bags". (Not that you'd ever catch us with an ear to the door, mind, just something we overheard somewhere).
Well, the days of lying back and thinking of Fawlty Towers are over, good sirs. One "mistake by hotel staff" we could cop, a second was mildly annoying (particularly for our members at the Nottingham hotel in question, who have battled tirelessly to re-establish their good name after that spate of incidents involving stockings and oranges during a Tory Party conference a few years back).
But enough is enough. Three strikes and you're out.
We hereby ``leak" to you this document, gentlemen, headlined ``Inside the team hotel". Call it a threat if you will, but if you do not begin to take responsibility for your childish games, then the following dossier might just find its way under the wrong door as well...
• We are told that targeting the captain is a popular tactic among cricket teams, so here goes. MrS.Waugh has 26 baggy green caps, all in the same state of disrepair, which travel with him around the globe. Along with his collected works of John Williamson, 25 of the caps are secreted in the hotel safe upon arrival. He has also been sleeping through wake-up calls, coinciding with the decline in his hearing to the point where he struggles to pick up simple sentences such as ``you're out".
• We cannot always guarantee MrWarne a non-smoking room. His insistence on lighting up regardless, and ashing in the top drawer all over the Gideon's Bible, will be tolerated no longer. If he does not desist, kitchen staff will be instructed to mix chilli lentils and pureed green vegetables into the base of his nightly ham and pineapple pizza. See how his tummy handles that lot, if you dare.
• Photocopying costs more than just money. MrBuchanan's recent request to ``run off a couple of dozen copies of everything you can find by Enid Blyton, pick as many numbers between one and a 1000 and chuck 'em under those doors marked `confidential"' is being investigated by Greenpeace as a factor in the rapid deterioration of the world's forests.
• MrMcGrath sleeps with a teddy bear and drinks camomile tea.
• It is becoming increasingly difficult to find bunk beds for the room shared by MrHayden and MrLanger so they can count to 200 together over and over until they fall asleep. MrHayden's insistence on getting the top bunk is causing repeated problems, as kids' bedding is generally not suited to grown men roughly the size of a Queensland grain silo. Our lawyers are currently investigating your claim of culpability against the hotel in Bombay after MrHayden crashed down on to MrLanger during the night, and we believe you might not have a leg to stand on.
• It is no longer acceptable for MrPonting to share a room with 16greyhounds, no matter how diligent he is in taking them for midnight walks. And if MrM.Waugh thinks sneaking a trotter - complete with sulky - into the hotel via the service lift is ``just a bit of a gag", then he will be asked to make alternative accommodation arrangements in the future.
The above said, let us take this opportunity to wish you and your players greetings of the season, and welcome you again to our hotels. If there is anything we can do to make your stay more comfortable, don't hesitate to slip a note under the door and we'll get right on to it.
© 2001 The Sunday Age