Re: (no subject)

A couple of my favourites are as follows;

Isabel calls me to say she is having trouble with her Portuguese domes=ics and as I "have a way with staff" would I mind dropping in to see =hem, which I do a couple of days later.

I forget their names, but lets call them Jose and Paulina. I ask Jose =hat the matter is. He replies and I quote as near verbatim as i can recall;

"Sir, its not that I mind Miss Isabel screaming at me, its not th=t I mind Miss Isabel screaming at me in front of my wife, its not that I mind Mrs Is=bel slapping me, its not that I mind her slapping me in from of my wife, its ju=t that I cannot accept being slapped in the street" !!!

Another good one was when I took Isabel to Bali, Indonesia 15 yrs ago.=20 Whilst there she did a lot of shopping of local artifacts and hand crafts,=20 including ordering a large bolt of fabric specially woven to her instructions. She asked Ugo Gerasati, the Brazilian socialite who had a fabricshop out there at the time specialising in Balinese batiquesetc, how =e proposed sending this to her once completed, as she had no intention whatso=ver of being paying outrageous postage and packing charges. He told her that he=had an excellent solution, which would involve no costs at all. He would ask th= next English customer who happened to be in the shop when the fabric was re=dy, if they would mind taking it with them back to London. Quite a favour to as= of anyone especially when this bolt was the size of a large packing case.

In any event the late Mary Howard (Lord Patrick Howard's charming =ife) dropped by a few weeks later to visit Ugo and was tasked with taking this h=ge package to London which she readily agreed to do.

On arrival in London, the first thing she did was to call Isabel whom =he had never met. She did this promptly at 9:00Am in the morning, not a good t=me for Isabel who is a night owl and generally only goes to sleep around 6 and=then wakes around lunchtime. The result of this call, which of course woke Isabe=, was for her to scream at Mary "Do you know what time this is? Do you t=ink this is an office?" To which Mary replied, somewhat startled at the hostili=y of this reaction, " I was calling to let you know I have brought your fabric=back from Bali". Isabel, not remotely mollified, cursed her for waking her =p and added as an aside "Well drop it off this afternoon at 4:00pm" and=then slammed down the phone without so much as good bye.

Mary, somewhat aghast by this behaviour, generous to the extreme, put =t down to a bad night and that afternoon turned up at 11 Tregunter Rd with th= huge parcel. She rang the door and waited and waited and waited and finally=20 Isabel opened the door on the chain and asked who she was. "I am Mary =oward with your fabric from Bali".

"Oh" snaps Isabel "You are=that wretched woman who woke my so inconsiderately this morning" with that she opens the door,=grabs the package and the slams it shut in Mary's face.

Mary now finally cracks and bursts into tears on Isabel's doostep =nd calls her best friend Lynn Guinness to tell her what has happened. Lynn, quite ri=htly outraged by this behaviour, calls me and tells me to speak to Isabel immediatly.

By the time I get the message and call Isabel, its her "good time=of day" around 6:30pm. I call her and she answers in a very friendly way and so I a=k her if the name Mary Howard rings a bell. "Should it?" she replie= quick as a flash. "Yes" I say "It bloody well shouldm since she had at =reat inconvenience hauled a large package half way around the world only to be yelled at for h=r trouble". Isabel thought for a second before wearliy replying "We=l she's lead a sheltered life" and that was that. I lift the term rank ingratitude on=o a different plane altogether.

more when you remember , please I just spit up my coffee . from laughting