Archive for July, 2006

Everyone knows that Star Wars has some pretty obsessive fans and we know from long experience that the modified car scene attracts some pretty hardcore enthusiasts, who’ll go to any lengths to make their motor match their dream. So what happens when all that a car modder dreams of is flying the Millennium Falcon along the Kessel run in less than 2 parsecs.

Well this,

and this,

and this

amongst many others…

but some bikers love their bikes just that little bit too much!

If ringing a call centre fills you with dread, imagine how you’d feel answering calls from the “Great” British public. Let me tell you that some of the people you pass in the street harbour a dark secret – they are stark staring bonkers. And they need car insurance too!

So I asked some of the lovely girls in our service department the following question – What is the strangest or funniest thing a customer has said to you?

Here are some of the kookiest.

Nicola:

‘”A bloke said to me yesterday, “I’m trapped in a hole, can you ring me back at 11?”‘

Carly:

‘I had a client say, “Eat more carrots, you bunch of rabbits.”‘

Zoe:

‘Last year I rang a client up during Charles and Camilla’s wedding to query something on their paperwork. They shouted at me and said, “How dare you ring while we’re trying to watch the wedding of the year!” and told me to call them back after it and then hung up.’

Jenny:

‘A client rang in to change some details. During the call he casually mentioned that he was naked. I asked if there was anything else I could do for him. Let’s just say he suggested I relieve him in a sexual manner as he was naked and horny…’

Jenny also told me that a few minutes later she heard a scream from across the room – the client had phoned back to try his luck again.

But the runaway weirdo magnet of the service floor seems to be Ellie:

‘I had a guy on the phone who started screaming for his life as if he had just been attacked. The cause of this was (in his words) “a mutant mother bee.” The guy went squeeling like a girl round his house with me still on the phone.’

‘A chap called up to add his wife and son onto the policy. I enquired as to how old the son is as under 26 would have been unacceptable for his particular policy. The client advised me “My son is 6 weeks old.” Needless to say I moved swiftly on to the wife’s details.’

‘I had a chap call and tell me that every time he stands in his kitchen and looks outside at his fountain he wets himself.’

One of my jobs is buying the many domain names that we use for our various activities.

Something that always lingers at the back of my mind when buying web addresses is the prospect of unintentionally picking up a very unfortunate domain, like these people did.

Want to help people find a therapist or counsellor? Why not set up a website called
www.therapistfinder.com

Sell pens under the name Pen Island? Well your domain has to be
www.penisland.net

Italian battery manufacturer? That’ll be
www.powergenitalia.com

Australian native plant nursery based in Mole Station, NSW?
www.molestationnursery.com

A site for programming experts can swap their knowledge?
www.expertsexchange.com

Looking to find an agent who represents a particular celebrity? Do a search at
www.whorepresents.com

Building a website for the First United Methodist Church in Cumming, Georgia? You’d better buy
www.cummingfirst.com

Central heating design service?
www.gasheating.co.uk

Storage company based in Cumbria?
www.cumstore.co.uk

Yes, the statistics all say that women drivers are safer. That’s why girls get much cheaper insurance. But as Gerry’s post proved, some ladies seem intent on living up to the old stereotypes. And I got sent some more.

Oh dear!

Obviously robbing banks is very bad and you should never do it, but if you are going to , at least make sure you follow these simple rules, which will make sure your getaway is as smooth as possible.

1. Don’t hail a taxi as your getaway car.
2. If you rent your getaway car, make sure you use a false name.
3. Don’t drive into a prison as you make your escape.
4. Don’t use a car with no engine.
5. Pick a low-crime area for your heist – your getaway car may be stolen otherwise!
6. Don’t hire a stretch limo for your getaway car.
7. Don’t use a 5hp mini-moto either.
8. Don’t take your toddler in the back seat.
9. Make sure your car is big enough to hold the items you plan to steal.
10. Don’t try and carjack a cop car.
11. Make sure your getaway driver can drive and try not to run over your accomplices.
12. and finally – never, ever use a Reliant Robin as your getaway car.

Well, finally the government claims to be clamping down on the menace of parking contractors. And about time too, given some of the absolutely ludicrous parking fines issued during the past few years, which ahve been carefully catalogued for theCraziest Parking Ticket Awards by the appealnow.com website.

They include:

• The driving instructor who got a parking ticket when his pupil stalled during a three point turn. Can’t fault the warden for speed, at least!
• The man who got a parking ticket whilst he was paying for a parking permit.
• A Hendon man, who parked his car legally in the morning in an area with no parking restrictions but returned to his car later the same day to find a yellow line had been painted up to his car and a ticket slapped on his windscreen.
• The Good Samaritan taxi driver, who stopped to help a woman who was ill in the back of his cab and got a parking ticket as he was phoning for an ambulance.
• Four cars in the cortege at a funeral which were ticketed whilst mourners paid their respects.
• The driver who stopped to ask a traffic warden for directions — and got a £50 ticket from the warden’s colleague.
• The Swedish man who received a parking ticket for his snowmobile (which had never left Sweden) for an alleged parking offence in Warwick.
• And, possibly maddest of all, a man who was thrown from his scooter and left lying in the road in London with a broken leg. As he was being put into the ambulance with its lights flashing, and with a nearby police car in attendance, his damaged bike was given a £100 parking ticket by a Lambeth Parking attendant.

As if that’s not bad enough, what happens when your car gets towed for a parking violation can be even worse. Pity the unlucky punter whose £50k Jaguar XK was accidentally dropped on another punter’s Ford Ka at a car pound in Poplar, East London.

But don’t ever be tempted to take the same way out of the parking nightmare as Kimberly Du, of Iowa. To avoid $500 of accumulated fines, she went to the somewhat extreme length of faking her own death and forged a letter telling a judge she had died in a car crash. She allegedly included a fake obituary, made to look like a page from the local paper’s website.

Unfortunately for Kim, the case began to unravel when the police pulled Du for another traffic ticket – a month after she ‘died’. She now faces up to five years in prison for fraud.