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Cool Beans

TV TRICK / SCHOOLBOY ERROR

Dear Advice Arnold,

Long time reader, first time writer. Love your stuff, although I hated those Crunchy Nut adverts you did, you sell-out.

Anyway, I recently came a cropper whilst visiting Swansea last month. I was staying in a slightly overpriced hotel and felt entitled to take a few things home with me to make up for the cost. Embarrassingly for me, as I dragged my suitcase out of the hotel lobby, the zip broke and the television I’d just acquired came pouring out of my bag and onto the gravel. After some debate, I had to pay them for damages. My question to you is: what's the best way to steal a television from a hotel?

Kind regards,

Felicity, Wrexham


Greetings Felicity,

Thanks for your message, but I think you’re confusing me with the comedian, impressionist and Crunch Nut endorser Rob Brydon. I’ll let it pass as I think it’s fair to say that the misunderstanding is more embarrassing for him.

Regarding your television scenario, I assumed your question to me would be something along the lines of, “How can I be less of a crooked cheapskate?” or, “Does this mean that karma exists?” But since yours was the only letter I received this month, I’ve got no choice but to come up with a long enough answer to fill this page.

Here’s what you do. Sneak 1,000 novelty lighters and a large bin bag into your hotel room. Under the dark cloak of the midnight hour, get to work melting down the hotel TV and collecting the residue in the bin bag. Once you’ve checked out, head home and stick the bag in your freezer. Give it a few hours and hey presto - you’ve got yourself a new flat screen.

You know what, I even amaze myself sometimes.

Advice Arnold
@chrisarnoldinc

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“The death of Osama Bin Laden was a tragedy.”

I couldn’t believe it. I had to rewind the six-second clip again and again, but there it was. David Cameron, publicly mourning the death of the most notorious and iconic figurehead of global terrorism of our generation. I was shocked and offended, but also astounded that our Prime Minister would make such a schoolboy error, such a catastrophic misreading of public opinion.

For my money, the average British citizen actually hates Osama Bin Laden, principally because he was an architect behind the September 11th terrorist attack, killing just under 3,000 people in New York City in a single afternoon. What a blunder, then, to show such public sorrow at his death.

It’s possible, I suppose, that there were words before or after the six-second clip which would place that particular sentence in a different light. But it’s impossible to say, as all past events are now uniformly recorded in 5-10 second looping clips devoid of context, attribution or historical verification. I'm not complaining. It's just a shame such high definition looping media was not as widely available when our Prime Minister crammed his wedge into the sopping maw of a rotting pig’s bonce.

Sean Morley
@SeanMorleyBrand

Photo by Harry Metcalfe

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