HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2010-01-14, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 14, 2010. PAGE 5.
Bonnie
Gropp
TThhee sshhoorrtt ooff iitt
Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.
– Old French proverb
Dave Carroll is the only civilian I know
who ever won a battle in the Lost
Luggage Wars.
Dave’s a Nova Scotia musician who logs a
lot of air miles travelling with his band, The
Sons of Maxwell. Naturally, his guitar goes
along for the ride.
His custom-made Taylor acoustic travels
in the hold, protected by a supposedly
shock-proof case which is plastered
with FRAGILE and DO NOT DROP
stickers. Nonetheless, on a trip to Nebraska
last year, United Airlines baggage
handlers found a way to mangle the hell
out of it.
It cost Carroll $1,400 to repair the damages.
But when he approached United for
compensation, the company stalled, blustered
and eventually told him to get lost.
Dave Carroll didn’t Go Postal; nor did he get
suicidal. He got even.
Dave Carroll wrote a song.
The three-part ditty is entitled United Breaks
Guitars. You can see Dave perform the song on
YouTube if you care to.
You will be, as I type these words,
approximately the 12 millionth visitor to do
so.
United’s mugging of Dave’s guitar, along
with the company’s ‘tough luck, Bub’reaction
turned into a musical goldmine for Dave
Carroll and a public relations disaster for the
airline. The massive public response to Dave’s
ditty led United to eventually offer a raft of
flight vouchers as well as payment for the
guitar repairs.
Carroll shrewdly suggested that United
donate the money to charity instead.
Final score: Dave Carroll, one; United
Airlines, zilch.
Most of us don’t fare nearly as well in the
Lost Luggage Wars – my pal, Ms. D, for
instance. A couple of months ago she landed in
Mexico for a few weeks vacation.
Her luggage, alas, kept flying.
All the way to Australia as it turned out –
although it took her several days to discover
that.
Well, what do you expect – Mexico, right?
I asked her how bad it was, dealing with
Mexican officialdom.
“The Mexicans were most helpful and
business-like,” Ms D told me. “It was Air
Canada that was absolutely hopeless.”
She talked to an AC rep who actually said, I
am not the brightest fruit on the tree, but I’ll
see what I can do.
She asked to speak to his supervisor. She
was told he was away until the following
Monday.
Eight days later her bags showed up.
Could have been worse, I suppose. She
could have been Marie MacLaughlin.
Air Canada managed to lose Marie’s
luggage for five days on a routine trip to
Florida in December, 2008.
On her return to Canada on Christmas Eve,
the airline lost her bags again.
In mid-January, last year, the airline’s
tracking system was still reporting
that delivery of her luggage was being
‘initiated’.
Which was interesting news for Marie. Her
son had driven to the airport, hunted down and
picked up the bags in person two weeks
earlier.
This was after he’d tried for several days to
get satisfaction through Air Canada’s toll-free
lost luggage number.
“They were saying that the bag was at the
airport but they couldn’t confirm it,
because they couldn’t talk to anyone at the
airport.”
The disconnect may be not unrelated to the
fact that the toll-free number is connected
to a call centre in India, some distance
from the baggage carousels at Pearson
International.
The lesson Marie MacLaughlin has taken
from the fiasco? Avoid Air Canada.
“I will probably never fly on them again,”
Marie says.
She’d better think twice about switching her
business to United. A couple of months ago,
Dave Carroll took a United Airlines flight to a
gig in Denver, Colorado. Dave’s no fool – he
booked two seats on the flight -- one for his
guitar.
But his luggage? You guessed it – AWOL. It
went on to Calgary and Fort Worth, Texas
before he saw it again.
Woody Allen couldn’t make this stuff up.
Arthur
Black
Other Views The lost luggage wars
Ontario has stopped appointing buddies
of premiers and political friends to its
key posts abroad and this has to be
good for the province.
Economic Development and Trade Minister
Sandra Pupatello has announced the province
has opened an office in Mumbai, its second in
India. This makes 11 offices it has in other
countries and they are now called international
marketing centres, headed and staffed by
experts and aimed almost solely at expanding
trade.
They replace those that often were used as
havens to provide sinecures to friends and
even attract a bit of glamour to the province’s
operations.
The first was established by its forerunner,
the newly-created Province of Upper Canada,
in 1792, making it one of the province’s oldest
institutions.
Its prime function was described as
“communicating directly with His Majesty’s
government on all subjects relating to the
affairs of the province.”
Later those running them were called agents
general and being so far from home may have
encouraged some to stray from the public
service code.
Word trickled back in 1873 the agent in
London, Rev. Horrocks Cocks, whose
profession and name suggest the utmost
propriety, was accused of “misconduct of a
serious nature.”
The cleric was asked to explain and refused
and the province felt this “diminished his
usefulness” and relieved him of his duties,
which is as much as this reporter could find
out about this long ago incident. Such scandals
have been seen rarely in government in all the
years since.
When this reporter visited Ontario House in
London in the 1970s, it was in an impressive,
historic building in one of that city’s swankiest
districts and Ontario cabinet ministers dropped
in and one left an impression he had a liaison
with an attractive woman staff member for
uses not in the official brochure.
Later agents in London included Ward
Cornell, better known as a commentator on
Hockey Night in Canada, which may not seem
a suitable qualification for the job.
But he also wrote speeches that helped
Progressive Conservative William Davis
become and remain premier, and had his own
communications company.
Davis said, when pressed, he could think of
no higher qualification for an agent general
than to have successfully managed his election
campaign and the legislature dissolved in
laughter at the effrontery.
A New Democrat MPP said he was puzzled
by the appointment, but when he visited
London, Cornell met him at the airport and
gave him a nice tour of London.
Other agents general there included Ross
DeGeer, a former executive director of the
Conservative Party, and Tom Wells,
remembered particularly for being brave
enough to stand at the door into a leadership
campaign meeting, announcing “I am Tom
Wells and I am asking you to vote for Allan
Lawrence,” when it was a foregone conclusion
the party would choose Davis.
Wells became one of Davis’s best ministers
and, if a former elected politician had to be
appointed, deserved it as much as any.
Agents general in Ontario’s Paris office have
included the former high profile TV
commentator and interviewer Adrienne
Clarkson, who went on to become governor
general and was known for her imperious style
in that post.
Clarkson had something of the same
reputation in Paris, sitting in her lavishly
renovated offices on the prestigious Rue
Faubourg du St. Honore and ruffling feathers
by saying she had to start from zero explaining
Ontario is not just a patch of land beside the
Great Lakes, as if previous emissaries from
Canada had accomplished nothing.
Agents general in Tokyo included Robin
Sears, principal secretary to New Democrat
premier Bob Rae, who sent him as far away as
possible because others in his office could not
get along with him. He recently emerged as a
public relations adviser, trying to explain why
Brian Mulroney collected money in unusual
locations after he retired as Conservative
prime minister.
Those who head Ontario’s offices in other
countries will now be less colourful – they will
be marketing experts selling the province and
be all business.
Eric
Dowd
FFrroomm
QQuueeeenn’’ss PPaarrkk
As dawning light brightens bringing a
sleepy mind with it, the notion of a
long, leisurely rising leads to a
lovely, lazy stretch.
But wait. What’s happened here?
Having believed that the holidays would
mean late starts to my day I was rather
surprised when the guy I share the room with,
jumped out of bed like a jack rabbit on
amphetamines well before the coffee pot was
set to start brewing.
Having asked him exactly what the heck he
was doing, this slow morning mover should
have been appeased to hear his plan. It seems
that after years of listening to my harping (yes,
let’s call it what it was) my warrior had set the
wheels in motion for a renovation project
which was to begin that very day.
Albeit, just as our vacation was beginning.
Since then, though life has not exactly
continued as usual, the chaos hasn’t been as
bad as I recall from past reno projects. And
most certainly not as bad as they depict on the
home makeover television shows. There have
been no meltdowns nor stormy showdowns.
Not even the irritability that tends to
accompany living in disarray has been in
evidence.
Sure the project is in its early stages, but that
was never before an indicator that peace and
tranquility would dominate. From standoffs
over something as mundane as the choice of
paint colour, to more vitriolic contretemps
sparked generally by exhaustion, we have been
known to raise the roof for reasons from start
to finish of our home renovation endeavours.
However, it’s been a while since we’ve
embarked on any ambitious decorating work
and I’m noticing changes beyond those
transforming the room. I suppose it could be
suggested that having reached middle age we
lack the energy to turn the inconsequential into
hyperbolic drama, but I prefer to think we’ve
just gained perspective.
Yes, perhaps we have lost the vim and vigour
passionate youth provided. But if that’s the
case then I’m happy to have gained these
added decades and the common sense that
comes with them. Seeing the importance of
some things has finally become second nature,
things like taking deep breaths or turning
around and walking away.
Where once my exhausted hubby would
come home from a long day’s work to begin a
long evening’s work on whatever project was
on the go, he has realized that it’s okay to relax
when you’re tired, that the work will indeed
still be waiting another day.
And I have learned that the sky doesn’t fall
and the sun will come up if a day passes
without any progress on his get-it-done list.
Bare walls, torn off trim and furniture pushed
into the middle of a room I need to use may all
be bad feng shui, but I assume the energy will
flow elsewhere, close my eyes to the mess, and
instead dream ahead to the promise.
Where once our very different tastes in decor
seemed insurmountable we have learned that
with time and patience we can generally find a
way to meet if not in the middle, then at least
only slightly off centre.
And if one of us does gain extra ground on
some point, we know it’s only fair to cede
some territory on the next debate.
So as I sat the other night watching a
television parked askew, from a couch pushed
back from the bare drywall, I had to smile
thinking of that impatient young woman I once
was and what a smart old girl she’s become.
Experts replace politicians’ buddies
Smart old girl
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