Kennedy: After Dinner Entertainer, After Dinner Speaker, Dinner Party Entertainment: Slap My Wrists

Slap My Wrists - I've Been Naughty

Yesterday I neglected you. I'm sorry. However to make up for it there are a bunch of things I am going to do - including a little joke that tickled me this morning.

Before all of that - why was I absent from this blog yesterday? Well I was performing at a meeting in the beautiful Aukland Castle in the north east of England at a networking event. Not only did the show go down well, there were a lot of people interested in having me perform at their own staff events. I impressed myself.

Now I have been promising a review of my trip to Jersey. So I'll make start right now. The trip was booked through Expedia - and I can tell you that I will never book another trip through them again so long as I live. It was terribly organised and communication was a word from Mars as far as they are concearned. At every point of contact, communication breakdown held us back from being able to enjoy our trip.

Not one for complaining without just cause here is what happened. Fist of all, we pre-booked (through Expedia) a car-parking space at Newcastle International Airport. This was to save time on the day. So along we drove to our local airport (which I frequent with considerable regularity) and after wandering round the car parks in search of an attendant 2 of them shook their head not knowing what our paper work had to do with them. Not a clue. Only to eventually find out that we had been booked in to a car park a MILE down the road from the Airport. Now that IS useful with a bunch of people with heavy cases.

Eventually we get tot he airport, check in and get a morgage out on a sausage sandwich from the 'restaurant' in the departure lounge. Board the plane, take-off, flight and landing were perfect and stunning views from the windows of the plane were giving us the message that things were about to be tranquel. How absolutely wrong could we have been?

On arrival at the airport our instructions from Expedia were that a driver of a transfer bus would be standing with our names on a card. Well, no that was not the case at all. In fact when one of our party approached the desk to find out more information he gave us the coach number which we started throwing our cases on too - only when double checking to find out this was going no-where near where we needed to be.

A little while later a taxi pulled in saying that he was our transfer. So not only was he not waiting for us (we laded on-time) with a card with our name on, he wasn't a coach at all but a cab.

Off we went to the hotel - what was in store for us there? Its a 4 star place, surely its got to be good? We pulled up and the Radisson SAS looked lovely, perfectly located on the sea front and a really nice modern building with an enourmous aquarium in reception. But I've never been anywhere where the concierge(s) doesn't speak to you or welcome you to the hotel. Instead he is too busy standing around looking creepy - but essentially doing nothing.

Checking in was an entertainment in itself. On booking the trip (yes, all through expedia) two rooms were booked. A double room and a 3 person room - a double bed and a single. Radisson said they knew nothing about it and attempted to enforce an additional charge which equated to almost £100 on top of what was already paid. With some gentle persuasion and looks of 'i'm goign to wrap the bed around your face' the room was sorted at no additional charge. Good times.

From then on we had a good time and learned important lessons like 'the staff at the Radisson will give you wrong information at every turn' for example we wanted to visit the castle. We asked how we get to it and were told the tide was in and so needed to get a boat. Which was fine. We were also told that it was open until six, which was good because it was now quarter to 5.

So we went to the crossing area, and lo and behold the tide was out, waaay out. So we walked across the causeway. It was a nice little walk, warm, surrounded by rock pools and a castle in the distance. Arriving at the castle at 5:02 we were turned away as it had already closed. The hotel had been wrong on both accounts.

One last thing that was just icky about the experience before we get on to what we LOVED about the trip, was the breakfast. The food was amazing. Really great selections of hot and cold, traditional and continetal and a help-yourself deal which is perfect for fussy eaters like myself. What we didn;t expect in any hotel (and a 4 star for that matter) was to have to wait in line for breakfast because the reastaurant wasn't big enough to cater for the number of guests staying in the hotel. Maybe they haven;t heard the words Feasibility Survey before.

So complaints aside (I feel better now), Jersey was lovely. They have a great landscape, some really amazing food - we had Indian, traditional, Italian and Tex-Mex which was all superb. It is a great island with some phenomenal scenary. Gory Bay is a really great place that we all wish we could have spent more time in. A large bay with no commercialism, just natural rocks and sea. Stunning. Also the Lengends Park where you can go-kart and play golf, as well as seeing the story of Jersey 3D show - which was damn impressive.

Well, that was Jersey. A great time which was spoiled by bad communication at almost every turn. We live and learna nd never let stuff like that hinder our enjoyment, its somethign to laugh at and a story to tell forever more, isn't it.

Okay - so here is a joke that tickled me this morning:

A very loud, unattractive, uncouth woman walked into Tesco with her two kids, yelling obscenities at them all the way through the entrance.

The Tesco Greeter said pleasantly, "Good morning and welcome to Tesco. Nice children you have there. Are they twins?"

The woman stopped yelling long enough to say, "No they ain't! The oldest one's 9 and the other one's 7. Why the hell would you think they're twins? Are you blind, or just stupid?"

"I'm neither blind nor stupid, Ma'am," replied the greeter. "I just couldn't believe someone would sleep with you twice.

Have a good day and thank you for shopping at Tesco

Have a great day, I'm performing at a street party tomorrow and will report back after the fact.
Kennedy