Ditched Helicopter Award

A DITCHED HELICOPTER AWARD for lousy service:
I have just stayed in the Fawlty Towers Hotel of Dubai – The Seven Sands. When I complained about my room the manager asked:
“What do you want me to do? – they are all as bad as yours”!

I had to rearrange my booking at the last moment and my agent booked this as a 4 star hotel – I’d say it’s about 1.5 stars.
On their brochure and website they say:

“Extended Hospitality” – Untrue
“Fully equipped gym” – Untrue
“Coffee Shop” – Untrue
“Business Centre” - Untrue
“Complimentary welcome fruit basket” – Untrue
“Complimentary daily newspaper” - Untrue

The place is dirty, badly managed and a disgrace so a mega DITCHED HELICOPTER to the SEVEN SANDS HOTEL, Dubai

Golden Helicopter Award

Roger Venables sends us this nomination:

I would like to nominate Chris Booth, Director of Graphics Direct for a Golden Helicopter Award. The longish but encouraging story is this:

• Our usual (shop) supplier of materials for mounting photographs had closed and I was struggling to find a replacement (Shop). We were in urgent need!
• So I searched the web for ‘Artists’ Materials and found Graphics Direct. It was difficult to tell whether they were first class or charlatans, except that they actually offered a phone number on a selling website, which was a good start.
• A call generated a very courteous response saying the relevant person was out but would call back, and they even asked when would be convenient – asap was the answer and they said about an hour.
• Chris Booth called back earlier than forecast, without declaring his position in the company, by which time I had found most of what I wanted on the website but not everything. Chris expertly took me through a process of booking what I wanted, then asking for a pro-forma invoice when getting to the payment stage. He then called me back within a few minutes to talk though adding what I wanted that was not on the website, adding that to the invoice, and taking payment. I had also wanted next day delivery as close to 100% guaranteed – no problem was the answer, and at no extra charge
• Within a minute or so, there was the invoice in my inbox, followed a couple of hours later by the Royal Mail tracking number for the parcel. The parcel arrived before the target time, and all was as ordered 100%.
• Then, 5 days after the order, an email from Chris, who turned out to be a (or perhaps the) Director of Graphics Direct, expressing the hope that our first experience of using them had been a good one and asking for feedback, which I duly gave him, and the whole experience prompted me to write to you!.

Outstanding! – I’m very happy to award a GOLDEN HELICOPTER AWARD for outstanding service to GRAPHICS DIRECT and CHRIS BOOTH

Golden Helicopter Award

It’s only when you travel that you come to appreciate just how good London cabbies are at their job. For the benefit of my overseas subscribers you cannot become a London taxi driver without “The Knowledge”. This is a very testing examination that you have to pass where you not only need to know every street and major building in the entire city but also the best way to get there.
They also ALWAYS have a view on local and world events – possibly slightly bigoted on occasions!- although that’s not part of The Knowledge as far as I know!
So a resounding GOLDEN HELICOPTER AWARD for outstanding service – over many years - goes to LONDON CABBIES!



TELL YOU WHAT……………..Let’s start a London cabbie anecdote blog here! Any stories you have about, or any experiences you’ve had with, London cabbies put them up here.