HEROIC FAILURES - MARVELLOUS!

Now that was funny!

Also, it reminded me of this old news story about a village out in the Russian far east, where, one day, an entire lake disappeared - just, foop, gone in the morning. The villagers suspected it was the Americans who stole it.

Lord Ellpus wrote:

THE LEAST SUCCESFUL EXPLORATION FOR OIL

Erecting the very latest equipment, Texaco workers set about drilling for oil at Lake Peigneur in Lousiana during November 1980.

After only a few hours drilling they sat back, expecting oil to shoot up. Instead, however, they watched a whirlpool form, sucking down not only the entire 1,300 acre lake, but also five houses, nine barges, eight tug boats, two oil rigs, a mobile home, most of a botanical garden, and 10 percent of nearby Jefferson Island, leaving a half-mile-wide crater. No one told them there was an abandoned salt mine underneath.

A local fisherman said he thought the world was coming to an end.

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nimh wrote:

Now that was funny!

Also, it reminded me of this old news story about a village out in the Russian far east, where, one day, an entire lake disappeared - just, foop, gone in the morning. The villagers suspected it was the Americans who stole it.

Here's the A2K thread about it (boy, that took some searching, had to Google until I found a bunch of blog and secondary news items, and then search in A2K for the town name that dug up):

America did it!...of course they did.

Quote:

Russian lake disappears, baffling villagers

19 May 2005 16:56:21 GMT
Source: Reuters

MOSCOW, May 19 (Reuters) - A Russian village was left baffled on Thursday after its lake disappeared overnight.

NTV television showed pictures of a giant muddy hole bathed in summer sun, while fishermen from the village of Bolotnikovo looked on disconsolately.

"It is very dangerous. If a person had been in this disaster, he would have had almost no chance of survival. The trees flew downwards, under the ground," said Dmitry Zaitsev, a local Emergencies Ministry official interviewed by the channel.

Officials in Nizhegorodskaya region, on the Volga river east of Moscow, said water in the lake might have been sucked down into an underground water-course or cave system, but some villagers had more sinister explanations.

"I am thinking, well, America has finally got to us," said one old woman, as she sat on the ground outside her house.

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lord ellpus : wouldn't surprise me if nuttall got lost right in our neighbouthood.
every year some european travellers decide to take a hike in the woods in one of the provincial parks and promptly get lost. some seem somewhat annoyed that the trails are usually not marked and that if you wander of the trodden path, you better carry a compass (cellphone might not always help, because not all areas are covered by the cell-net, and what do you tell the operator ? "i'm lost in the woods").
so, the ontario provincial police and their tracking dogs are usuaally called out, but in some cases the canadian airforce is asked to assist. usually
people are found not very far from a major road, they just didn't know in which direction to go. hbg

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"Our business in life is not to succeed but to continue to fail in good spirits". -- Robert Louis Stevenson

THE GREATEST MATHEMATICAL ERROR.

The Mariner I space probe was launched from Cape Canaveral on 22nd of July, 1962 towards Venus. After 13 minutes flight a booster engine would give acceleration up to 25,820 mph; after 44 minutes 9,800 solar cells would unfold; after 80 days a computer would calculate the final course corrections and after 100 days the craft would circle the unknown planet, scanning the mysterious clouds in which it is bathed.

However................ with an efficiency that is truely heartening, Mariner I plunged into the atlantic Ocean only four minutes after take off. Inquiries later revealed that a minus sign had been omitted from the instructions fed into the computer. 'It was a human error' a launch spokesman said. This minus sign cost £4,280,000, or about $6.5million in your rapidly depreciating colonial currency.

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THE BIGGEST BANKRUPTCY

British bankruptcy history was made in 1978 by Mr William Stern. The 43-year-old property developer had total personal liabilities in excess of £100,000,000.

Hearing the case in the London Bankruptcy Court, Mr Alan Sales, the Official Receiver said, "This bankruptcy has been described as the biggest but really it is a very ordinary bankruptcy with more noughts at the end."

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THE WORST FISHERMAN

Thomas Birch, the eighteenth-century scholar, was a keen fisherman. However, he rarely caught anything and so decided to disguise himself in order to lull the fish into a false sense of security.
He constructed an outfit which made him look like a tree. His arms fitted into the branches and his eyes peered through knots in the bark. Thus attired, he set off down the river bank and took up his position. He still did not catch anything, attracting only suspicious dogs who peed on him, and friends who arrived and had a picnic at his feet.

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THE WORST HIJACKING

We shall never know the identity of the man who in 1976 made the most
unsuccessful hijack attempt ever. On a flight across America, he rose from
his seat, drew a gun and took the stewardess hostage.

"Take me to Detroit," he demanded.

"We're already going to Detroit," she replied.

"Oh... good," he said, and sat down again.

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THE WORST ANIMAL RESCUE

During the firemen's strike of 1978, the British Army had taken over
emergency fire fighting and on 14 January they were called out by an
elderly lady in South London to retrieve her cat which had become trapped
up a tree. They arrived with impressive haste and soon discharged their
duty. So grateful was the lady that she invited them all in for tea.
Driving off later, with fond farewells completed, they ran over the cat
and killed it.

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thks E

got married during firemans strike

can confirm squashed cat story

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good stuff!

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THE WORLD'S LEAST SUCCESSFUL FOOTBALL TRAINER....

Well, seeing as he was American, I suppose it should be called soccer, really....

In the first ever World Cup the trainer of the American soccer team set an example which no other has yet managed to equal.
In the 1930 semi-final, Argentina had just scored a disputed goal against the USA. Shouting abuse at the referee as he travelled, your wonderful soccer coach dashed out to tend to an injured player.
The 80,000 crowd roared with approval as he ran on to the pitch, threw down his medical bag, broke a bottle of chloroform and anaesthetized himself.

He was carried off by his own team.

MARVELLOUS!

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THE LEAST SUCCUSSFUL ATTEMPT TO LIGHT A LOG FIRE

Derek Langbourne, a scientist from Upton, near Didcot (UK), built a fire in his grate and lit it. He then popped outside to fill the log bucket.
When he returned he observed that, in its enthusiasm to heat the room, one log had rolled out of the grate and had set fire to the log box. He picked up the log box and carried it out to the garden.

On the way out, he brushed against a curtain by the front door. By the time he returned, both curtain and door were in flames.
Whilst attempting to telephone Didcot Fire Brigade, he noticed that the log box, which he had deposited in his garden, had now set fire to his car.
He then put on his overcoat, and approached the car with a bucket of water. In the process, he tripped over a partly-filled petrol can.

Seeing that Mr Langbourne was in trouble, his neighbour called the Fire Brigade. By the time the Fire Brigade had arrived, Mr Langbourne was himself on fire, with flames freely leaping from his coat. An ambulance arrived later, and took Mr Langbourne off to hospital where he was treated for shock and minor burns.

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THE WORST HEARING AID.

During a visit to his doctor in 1978, Mr Harold Senby, of Leeds, found that his hearing improved when the hearing aid which he had been wearing for the past 20 years was removed.
"With it I couldn't hear much" he said "But with it out, I had almost perfect hearing in that ear".

Closer medical examination revealed that in the 1950's, a hearing aid mould was made for his left ear instead of his right. "Over the years I have been fitted with several new aids" noted Mr Senby, "but no one noticed that I had been wearing them in the wrong hole."

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THE MOST UNSUCCESSFUL LYING IN STATE.

After death, many religions leave their dead Bishops lying about the church so that mourners may pay their last respects.

The most unsuccessful such event happened in March 1896 at a Greek Orthodox Church in Methymni.
After two days lying in state, clad in episcopal vestments, the Bishop of Lesbos, Nicephorus Glycas, suddenly sat bolt upright, glared at the mourners and asked "What are you staring at?"

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THE LEAST SUCCESSFUL GOLF CLUB.

The City Golf Club in London is unique among such organisations in not possessing a golf course, ball, tee, caddy or bag. Its whole premises, just off Fleet street, do not contain a single photograph of anything that approaches a golfing topic.
"We had a driving range once," the commissionaire said " but we dropped that years ago".
The membership now devotes itself exclusively to eating and drinking.

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THE LEAST SUCCESSFUL EMBRACE.

In 1976 Dr Brian Richards of Deal in Kent discovered one of the great love stories of all time, while in Regents Park, London.

He came across a semi clad gentleman who had slipped a disc while enjoying himself in the back of a sports car with his girlfriend.
Sine the man was transfixed with agony, his girlfriend was unable to get out for help. In desperation she jammed her foot against the car horn.
This attracted Dr Richards, and ambulanceman, a fireman and a large crowd of passers by who formed a circle round the car.
"You'll never get them out of there" said the fireman, who then set about cutting the back off the car.
Trained for desperate situations, two women voluntary workers arrived and began serving hot sweet tea through the window. "It was like the blitz" one of them commented.

Eventually, the lover was carried off in agony. Ambulancemen told the girlfriend that his recovery prospects were good. "Sod him" she replied "what's worrying me is how I shall explain to my husband what's happened to his car".

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THE WORLD'S WORST JUROR

It happened at a rape trial in Snaresbrook (U.K.) county court on an unusually warm and sultry day. One of the jurors fell asleep just as the victim was being questioned by the prosecuting counsel.
"Would you," he asked, "tell the court precisely what the defendant said to you before the attack?"
"No, she would not." she said. "It was far too crude and shocking."
"Would you be prepared to write it down?"
And she did, with every sign of distaste (it was, broadly speaking, a promise that nothing in the history of sexual congress compared with what the rapist planned to do to his victim), and the paper was passed to the judge, learned counsel, the clerk of the court, and the jury.
In the second row, our hero slumbered on until he was suddenly woken by a sharp nudge from the smiling brunette next to him. She passed the note to him. He read the message thereon, gazed in wonder at his neighbour, read it again, winked at the woman, and slipped the note in his pocket.
When the judge demanded the note back, the juror refused. It was, he said, a private matter.

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/5890/laughing7zl.gif

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HEROIC FAILURES - MARVELLOUS!

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