Sideswipe

Cuba off the agenda

Trying to organise a tour of Cuba, Philip emailed a specialist Cuba travel agency and got the reply from the rep, Tomas. “Such a trip would require several flights in order to cover all that ground in just 6 days . . . At this point we have decided not to book domestic flights unless clients have the time left over to lose, since flights are completely hit and miss, often 4-6-8 hours late, sometimes cancelled without reason. We have had too many issues of clients blaming us for this, though obviously we do not control domestic flights. So I am sorry, but I can’t help you organise this. With my experience in Cuba, having been to all those destinations, I honestly wouldn’t recommend the trip either, but I wish you luck with it.” Philip replied: ‘‘Thanks for your advice Tomas. I think I’ll just stay at home.’’ Tomas answered: ‘‘Haha, sounds like an alternative, but perhaps better than having a heart attack in Cuba :-)”

Popular entries in dictionary

Popular acronym WTF has made it into the dictionary. Short for “what the . . .” (you can figure out the rest), the word is used to express outraged surprise. Also making the Merriam-Webster’s unabridged dictionary are emoji, NSFW, clickbait, and photobomb. As does egg corn, which is a linguistic term for our tendency to mishear Elton John lyrics as “Hold me closer, Tony Danza” instead of “Hold me closer, tiny dancer”. (Source: Time.com)

Bernie was dismayed to see the picture of his Dutch Curry and Rice Cup a Soup, resplendent with peas, bore no resemblance to the reality, in which he could only find two peas.

My girlfriend wanted to have a conversation about me being too childish, but she didn’t know the password to get in.

The Boogie Fever of abbreviations in the liquor aisle.