Look at this Richard. Just look at it

This is so damn funny that forgive me if I effectively forward the thing, which I'm sure you've all seen already.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/4344890/Virgin-the-worlds-best-passenger-complaint-letter.html

Dear Mr Branson

REF: Mumbai to Heathrow 7th December 2008

I love the Virgin brand, I really do which is why I continue to use it despite a series of unfortunate incidents over the last few years. This latest incident takes the biscuit.

Ironically, by the end of the flight I would have gladly paid over a thousand rupees for a single biscuit following the culinary journey of hell I was subjected to at thehands of your corporation.

Look at this Richard. Just look at it:

I imagine the same questions are racing through your brilliant mind as were racing through mine on that fateful day. What is this? Why have I been given it? What have I done to deserve this? And, which one is the starter, which one is the desert?

You don't get to a position like yours Richard with anything less than a generous sprinkling of observational power so I KNOW you will have spotted the tomato next to the two yellow shafts of sponge on the left. Yes, it's next to the sponge shaft without the green paste. That's got to be the clue hasn't it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in:

I know it looks like a baaji but it's in custard Richard, custard. It must be the pudding. Well you'll be fascinated to hear that it wasn't custard. It was a sour gel with a clear oil on top. It's only redeeming feature was that it managed to be so alien to my palette that it took away the taste of the curry emanating from our miscellaneous central cuboid of beige matter. Perhaps the meal on the left might be the desert after all.

Anyway, this is all irrelevant at the moment. I was raised strictly but neatly by my parents and if they knew I had started desert before the main course, a sponge shaft would be the least of my worries. So lets peel back the tin-foil on the main dish and see what's on offer.

I'll try and explain how this felt. Imagine being a twelve year old boy Richard. Now imagine it's Christmas morning and you're sat their with your final present to open. It's a big one, and you know what it is. It's that Goodmans stereo you picked out the catalogue and wrote to Santa about.

Only you open the present and it's not in there. It's your hamster Richard. It's your hamster in the box and it's not breathing. That's how I felt when I peeled back the foil and saw this:

Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking it's more of that Baaji custard. I admit I thought the same too, but no. It's mustard Richard. MUSTARD. More mustard than any man could consume in a month. On the left we have a piece of broccoli and some peppers in a brown glue-like oil and on the right the chef had prepared some mashed potato. The potato masher had obviously broken and so it was decided the next best thing would be to pass the potatoes through the digestive tract of a bird.

Once it was regurgitated it was clearly then blended and mixed with a bit of mustard. Everybody likes a bit of mustard Richard.

By now I was actually starting to feel a little hypoglycaemic. I needed a sugar hit. Luckily there was a small cookie provided. It had caught my eye earlier due to it's baffling presentation:

It appears to be in an evidence bag from the scene of a crime. A CRIME AGAINST BLOODY COOKING. Either that or some sort of back-street underground cookie, purchased off a gun-toting maniac high on his own supply of yeast. You certainly wouldn't want to be caught carrying one of these through customs. Imagine biting into a piece of brass Richard. That would be softer on the teeth than the specimen above.

I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was relax but obviously I had to sit with that mess in front of me for half an hour. I swear the sponge shafts moved at one point.

Once cleared, I decided to relax with a bit of your world-famous onboard entertainment. I switched it on:

I apologise for the quality of the photo, it's just it was incredibly hard to capture Boris Johnson's face through the flickering white lines running up and down the screen. Perhaps it would be better on another channel:

Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this. After that I switched off. I'd had enough. I was the hungriest I'd been in my adult life and I had a splitting headache from squinting at a crackling screen.

My only option was to simply stare at the seat in front and wait for either food, or sleep. Neither came for an incredibly long time. But when it did it surpassed my wildest expectations:

Yes! It's another crime-scene cookie. Only this time you dunk it in the white stuff.

Richard.... What is that white stuff? It looked like it was going to be yoghurt. It finally dawned on me what it was after staring at it. It was a mixture between the Baaji custard and the Mustard sauce. It reminded me of my first week at university. I had overheard that you could make a drink by mixing vodka and refreshers. I lied to my new friends and told them I'd done it loads of times. When I attempted to make the drink in a big bowl it formed a cheese Richard, a cheese. That cheese looked a lot like your baaji-mustard.

So that was that Richard. I didn't eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can't imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary.

As I said at the start I love your brand, I really do. It's just a shame such a simple thing could bring it crashing to it's knees and begging for sustenance.

Yours Sincererly

XXXX

fucking brilliant

quality rant.

oh wow, thats brilliant! I was laughing out loud!

hehe same here
really funny

HAHAHA! Couldn't stop laughing all the way through!

hehe

very funny!

Very good. i love the say she spoke to one of our greatest business men like he was a petulant school child!

Ah excellent! Reminded me of this classic -

http://www.snopes.com/travel/airline/seat29e.asp

PDF of original is http://msgboard.snopes.com/travel/graphics/seat29e.pdf

Hahaha!

"Is that Ray Liotta? A question I found myself asking over and over again throughout the gruelling half-hour I attempted to watch the film like this"
lol

How would I go about emailing this to peeps without revealing myself as a nerd who lurks bike forums hmm...

link to the telegraph article you spanner!

this is great, reminds me of a hilarious complain letter MOC wrote to BA recently after they epically cocked up our flights.
I wont post it, its very long - however here is a snippet - we got £100 in vouchers from BA

"As part of the planning process for my trip, one issue to be decided was that of which airline I should fly with. Fleetingly I considered the likes of Easy Jet and Ryan Air. While cheap and cheerful there were a few issues that put me off. The first was my objection to having to pay a £40 surcharge to avoid being punched in the face upon boarding the aircraft. The second was that whilst traveling with the aforementioned airlines previously, I have found that once too often after taking off, the cabin crew have discovered that they have left their one communal brain cell back in the airport. So, the decision was made, I decided to opt for the BA experience and what an experience it turned out to me."

:'d

"So that was that Richard. I didn't eat a bloody thing. My only question is: How can you live like this? I can't imagine what dinner round your house is like, it must be like something out of a nature documentary."

wonderful.

Classic.

I once complained to Greggs the Bakers and they sent me £40 of vouchers. Now for those of you familiar with their product, you will know that £40 would go a loooooong way. Especially up North.

"That's got to be the clue hasn't it. No sane person would serve a desert with a tomato would they. Well answer me this Richard, what sort of animal would serve a desert with peas in?"

After this line I just resigned myself to the fact that I'd be laughing enmbarrassingly at my PC for a while :)

this is who I have in mind when I read it;

This is not funny at all. You're all trying to make light of a serious situation.

I have now received seven separate emails with a link to this letter, all within 24hrs.

This I find less amusing.

It's not even a funny complaint letter in the first place.....must have been a slow news day...

To quote Prince Far I

'You call yourself Branson
But branson is a pickle with no place on my plate.'

It was mildly amusing to start with.

Thanks for all the PM's with the link, you know who you are...

:

I once complained to Greggs the Bakers and they sent me £40 of vouchers. Now for those of you familiar with their product, you will know that £40 would go a loooooong way. Especially up North.

this is a favorite of mine, you complain that something is shit and their response is to give you more shit, but for free!

insane logic. "waiter, there's a fly in my soup"

"I'm sorry Sir, here's a voucher for a lifetime's supply of fly-ridden soup"