Storytellers...

Some rather good examples how bad translations may give one the wrong
impression.... (provided by Karsten Hamre / PENITENT)

Cocktail lounge, Norway:
LADIES ARE REQUESTED NOT TO HAVE CHILDREN IN THE BAR.

At a Budapest zoo:
PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS. IF YOU HAVE ANY SUITABLE FOOD, GIVE IT TO THE GUARD ON DUTY.

Doctors office, Rome:
SPECIALIST IN WOMEN AND OTHER DISEASES.

Hotel, Acapulco:
THE MANAGER HAS PERSONALLY PASSED ALL THE WATER SERVED HERE.

Information booklet about using a hotel air conditioner, Japan:
COOLES AND HEATES: IF YOU WANT CONDITION OF WARM AIR IN YOUR ROOM, PLEASE CONTROL YOURSELF.

Car rental brochure, Tokyo:
WHEN PASSENGER OF FOOT HEAVE IN SIGHT, TOOTLE THE HORN. TRUMPET HIM MELODIOUSLY AT FIRST, BUT IF HE STILL OBSTACLES YOUR PASSAGE THEN TOOTLE HIM WITH VIGOUR.

Sign in men's rest room in Japan:
TO STOP LEAK TURN COCK TO THE RIGHT

In a Nairobi restaurant:
CUSTOMERS WHO FIND OUR WAITRESSES RUDE OUGHT TO SEE THE MANAGER.

On the grounds of a private school:
NO TRESPASSING WITHOUT PERMISSION.

On an Athi River highway:
TAKE NOTICE: WHEN THIS SIGN IS UNDER WATER, THIS ROAD IS IMPASSABLE.

On a poster at Kencom:
ARE YOU AN ADULT THAT CANNOT READ? IF SO, WE CAN HELP.

In a City restaurant:
OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK, AND WEEKENDS TOO.

One of the Mathare buildings:
MENTAL HEALTH PREVENTION CENTRE.

A sign seen on an automatic restroom hand dryer:
DO NOT ACTIVATE WITH WET HANDS.

In a Pumwani maternity ward:
NO CHILDREN ALLOWED.

In a cemetery
PERSONS ARE PROHIBITED FROM PICKING FLOWERS FROM ANY BUT THEIR OWN GRAVES.

Sign in Japanese public bath:
FOREIGN GUESTS ARE REQUESTED NOT TO PULL COCK IN TUB.

Tokyo hotel's rules and regulations:
GUESTS ARE REQUESTED NOT TO SMOKE OR DO OTHER DISGUSTING BEHAVIOURS IN BED.

On the menu of a Swiss restaurant:
OUR WINES LEAVE YOU NOTHING TO HOPE FOR.

In a Tokyo bar:
SPECIAL COCKTAILS FOR THE LADIES WITH NUTS.

In a Bangkok temple:
IT IS FORBIDDEN TO ENTER A WOMAN EVEN A FOREIGNER IF DRESSED AS A MAN.

Hotel room notice, Chiang-Mai, Thailand:
PLEASE DO NOT BRING SOLICITORS INTO YOUR ROOM.

Hotel brochure, Italy:
THIS HOTEL IS RENOWNED FOR ITS PEACE AND SOLITUDE. IN FACT, CROWDS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD FLOCK HERE TO ENJOY ITS SOLITUDE.

Hotel lobby, Bucharest:
THE LIFT IS BEING FIXED FOR THE NEXT DAY. DURING THAT TIME WE REGRET THAT YOU WILL BE UNBEARABLE.

Hotel elevator, Paris:
PLEASE LEAVE YOUR VALUES AT THE FRONT DESK.

Hotel, Yugoslavia:
THE FLATTENING OF UNDERWEAR WITH PLEASURE IS THE JOB OF THE CHAMBERMAID.

Hotel, Japan:
YOU ARE INVITED TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE CHAMBERMAID.

In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian Orthodox
monastery: YOU ARE WELCOME TO VISIT THE CEMETERY WHERE FAMOUS RUSSIAN AND SOVIET COMPOSERS, ARTISTS, AND WRITERS ARE BURIED DAILY EXCEPT THURSDAY.

Hotel catering to skiers, Austria:
NOT TO PERAMBULATE THE CORRIDORS IN THE HOURS OF REPOSE IN THE BOOTS OF ASCENSION.

Taken from a menu, Poland:
SALAD A FIRM'S OWN MAKE; LIMPID RED BEET SOUP WITH CHEESY DUMPLINGS IN THE FORM OF A FINGER; ROASTED DUCK LET LOOSE; BEEF RASHERS BEATEN IN THE COUNTRY PEOPLE'S FASHION.

Supermarket, Hong Kong:
FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE, WE RECOMMEND COURTEOUS, EFFICIENT SELF-SERVICE.

In an East African newspaper:
A NEW SWIMMING POOL IS RAPIDLY TAKING SHAPE SINCE THE CONTRACTORS HAVE THROWN IN THE BULK OF THEIR WORKERS.

Hotel, Vienna:
IN CASE OF FIRE, DO YOUR UTMOST TO ALARM THE HOTEL PORTER.

A sign posted in Germany's Black Forest:
IT IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN ON OUR BLACK FOREST CAMPING SITE THAT PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT SEX, FOR INSTANCE, MEN AND WOMEN, LIVE TOGETHER IN ONE TENT UNLESS THEY ARE MARRIED WITH EACH OTHER FOR THIS PURPOSE.

Hotel, Zurich:
BECAUSE OF THE IMPROPRIETY OF ENTERTAINING GUESTS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX IN THE BEDROOM, IT IS SUGGESTED THAT THE LOBBY BE USED FOR THIS PURPOSE.

An advertisement by a Hong Kong dentist:
TEETH EXTRACTED BY THE LATEST METHODISTS.

A laundry in Rome:
LADIES, LEAVE YOUR CLOTHES HERE AND SPEND THE AFTERNOON HAVING A GOOD TIME.

Tourist agency, Czechoslovakia:
TAKE ONE OF OUR HORSE-DRIVEN CITY TOURS. WE GUARANTEE NO MISCARRIAGES.

Advertisement for donkey rides, Thailand:
WOULD YOU LIKE TO RIDE ON YOUR OWN ASS?

The box of a clockwork toy made in Hong Kong:
GUARANTEED TO WORK THROUGHOUT ITS USEFUL LIFE.

In a Swiss mountain inn:
SPECIAL TODAY - NO ICE-CREAM.

Airline ticket office, Copenhagen:
WE TAKE YOUR BAGS AND SEND THEM IN ALL DIRECTIONS

Ex-postal worker jailed for fecal fight (told by Orkkh)

EMPIRE - A disgruntled United States Postal worker was jailed in lieu of
$1 million bond Thursday after former co-workers told police he attacked them with three buckets of animal feces.
James Beal, of Empire, faces charges in Leelanau County of assault and malicious destruction of property and has also been indicted on federal charges in Grand Rapids. The Michigan State Police and the U.S. Postal Service are investigating. Beal, a recently terminated employee, entered a mail sorting room at the Empire Post Office at around 10:30 a.m. Thursday and threw three buckets of feces at four workers and on the contents of the room, according to the state police. Police responded to the post office within minutes and provided security at the post office and surveillance of Beal's residence. Beal surrendered peacefully at around 12:30 p.m. after police made telephone contact with him.
No injuries were reported and decontamination was handled by the United States Postal Hazardous Materials Team from Grand Rapids

Dozens of cats taken from pair in NN (forwarded by Orkkh)

November 13 2001

NEWPORT NEWS - The putrid stench of cat feces was still heavy outside Room
434 at the Welcome Inn late Monday morning after animal control officers took more than 80 cats from the small, dank first-floor room over the weekend. Officers took another 30 to 40 cats from a room rented at the nearby Green Oaks Motel, on Jefferson Avenue. Both rooms were rented to Steven Welker and his wife, Debra.
"This is the worst I've seen for the number of cats," Gene Falls, the director of the Peninsula Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said Monday. "These cats were living in the stove, cupboards, bathroom, in the mattress and walls."
There were cats sitting on the metal joists in the exposed ceiling. Two large holes at the base of the bedroom wall provided a passageway to the bathroom. Falls said he couldn't understand why anyone would live in such filth with so many cats.
"The whole floor was covered in feces," he said.
Complaints about cats at the Welcome Inn are nothing new for the SPCA.
"I guess we've gotten three complaints over the last six months," Falls said. "When we'd check out the room we'd find only two or three or four."
City ordnance limits the number of companion animals, such as cats or dogs, to four. It was not a complaint about cats, however, that brought the SPCA to the Welcome Inn. A sheriff's deputy was serving an eviction notice on Welker and his wife Friday for non-payment of rent, said Welcome Inn manager Harivaban Shah. When no one answered the knock, the deputy peered through the window. He found the room overrun with cats, and he was bombarded by the heavy stench. The deputy contacted the Peninsula SPCA.
John Ryan was the first animal control officer to respond.
"The way you see the place now is they way we found it - except there were
cats all over the place," he said.
Doyle Sands lives at the Welcome Inn and works there as a janitor. He was the first person to enter the room. Because the door was broken, he climbed through the window. Sands, like several other neighbors, knew the Welkers harbored cats.
"But I didn't know they had that many," he said. "I practically stepped on the cats when I climbed through."
He watched Ryan and three other SPCA officers carry the animals out three and four at a time.
"I guess it took us about two hours," Ryan said.
The SPCA officers picked up another 14 cats during a return visit Saturday.
Falls said they took about 30 cats from a room at the Green Oaks Motel on
Sunday. On Monday, Ryan returned to the Welcome Inn to check the baited cages he had left over the weekend. He found two more cats-- one a timid black alley cat and the other a large calico with sores on its face.
Jagbish Desai, owner of the Green Oaks, said the Welkers paid him a week's
rent, tax and deposit when they checked in Nov. 8. "I specifically told them, 'No pets.' " he said.
Desai believes the couple smuggled the cats in in boxes during the night.
"The room was stinking like anything."
A charge of cruelty to animals is pending against the Welkers. They could not be reached for comment. The SPCA has also reported the deplorable conditions and odor to city health officials and the codes compliance office. SPCA officials said that the majority of the cats will be euthanized.