Thread: Sometimes I'd do this job for free

Around mid morning one of my Indian Engineers (VJ) asked if he could borrow my Land Cruiser - Nothing unusual about that - Going off road, take the Land Cruiser - I told him the keys are in the ignition and then added 'but get it back by lunchtime'

Lunch came, no VJ and no Land Cruiser.

So I grabbed a lift with someone else and never gave it another thought.

About 2 O'Clock one of the Mechanical Engineers came in and asked with a smirk on his face - 'Got your truck back yet?'

This prompted me to call VJ..

My question on where my car was was met with a hurried excuse (and an obvious lie)

So I asked the Mechy where my car was.

'Try Area 3 - next to SS60'...

I borrowed another car and drove over to have a look....

Yep there was my Land Cruiser.... It's tow bar roped to a Pick-Up truck.

Sitting in the pick-up was a miserable looking Indian guy.

Sitting in my Toyata was another miserable looking Indian guy (who we know by the name of VJ).

The Pick-Up truck was stuck past the doors in quicksand.... and so was my Toyota.

But there was more...

The font of my Toyota was tied to the back of a bus (also occupied by a miserable looking Indian guy and also stuck in the quicksand)

The front of the bus was roped to the front of a 10 ton crane - and yes the crane driver was a very miserable looking Indian guy - his miserable countenance gradually being overcome by his fear of the quicksand he was sinking in.

Approaching from the distance was a twenty ton crane driven by a very confident looking Indian guy.



Sitting along the ridge of a nearby sand dune was a group of Bedouin - slapping their thighs and howling in appreciative laughter.

What am I saying?! - I'd never do this job for free.

And you were another miserable Indian guy looking on?

Wheres the pictures ?

Originally Posted by Propagator

Wheres the pictures ?

Agreed...pictures are required!!!!

You should make him bunk in with the Bengali's

Yup gotta say that's a howler, but a picture paints a thousand words.

Always enjoy your posts GuestHouse, you should drop by more often.

Good story.

Excellent. and well told also!

Did you get you land cruiser or not?

Good start to the day, 4 glum Indians and one about to join them.

Hope you got/get yours back alive.

Yep photos would have been good

























Commentary:
This set of photographs depicting a a series of unfortunate, if spectacular, events involving one small car and two large crane trucks has been circulating via email and online since 2004. Most of the images in the sequence are genuine and depict a real event.

However, the visual "punch line" of the piece, the image showing the second larger crane toppling into the water, is in fact a fake digitally created from earlier photographs in the sequence. A closer scrutiny of the last image in the sequence reveals that it is actually an altered version of the fifth photograph. Bystanders are in precisely the same position in both images. In photo five, the green crane truck was not even at the scene. Thus, it is clearly not credible to suggest that the same group of people stood like statues in the very same positions while the green truck was called, arrived and subsequently came to grief.

Moreover, a telltale "smudged" appearance around the chassis of the "falling" truck and on the pier show where elements of the original photograph were digitally removed and the supposedly tipping truck added in. The unchanged position of the rearview mirror reflection in the trucks windscreen and other signs show that the fully upright truck was cut from one of the earlier photographs, tilted sideways, and placed into position in the last image. And, finally, in the short space of time between which images 8 and 9 were supposedly snapped, a number of spectators, vehicles and equipment miraculously disappear while the small white boat just as miraculously returns.

The exposure of the last photograph as fake tends to rob the sequence of much of its power. We tend to take certain dark enjoyment from examples of disastrous mismanagement in others (unless it impacts on us directly), so the spectacle of the second crane operator exhibiting the same incompetence as the first and losing his vehicle to the briny sea will seem just too good not to forward for many recipients. But, in reality, the second larger crane successfully retrieved both the small car and the smaller crane without further mishap.

Even without the fake image, the photo sequence was sure to be a popular message board topic and inbox filler and, indeed, it circulated vigorously well before some unknown prankster added the last altered image. And it does show a real event that occurred in 2004 at a pier at Roundstone, in Galway, Ireland. At the time, the event was described by a Roundstone blogger, thusly:

We have certainly have had our ups and downs in the village this year what with somebody falling off the village wall, thank god not killed, and then in the wee hours of Saturday morning, a car goes into the Harbour, with a young man at the wheel, the car landed upside down and if it was not for the vigilance Mary King who alerted Sean de Courcey, Sean fair play to him pulled this man out of the car, which was nearly totally submerged in the tide and pulled him to safety, what ever way you look at it, Sean saved his life, yet again another near fatal accident, and then I suppose on the slightly humorous side and to add insult to injury, a tow truck was called out to pull the car out, now get this, the truck fell in while trying to lift the car, no don't worry there was no one in it, it was remote controlled, but the machine was not heavier enough to lift the car out, therefore, a proper professional machine had to be called in, and the job was done, no loss of life, what was interesting the amount of people that came to have a look at this task you would think we had another social event going on

Thankfully, no people were injured in the incident although both the car driver and the operator of the first crane may have suffered red faces and hefty blows to their pride.

References:
The right tool for the job?
Roundstone News

Last updated: 7th August 2008
First published: 7th August 2008

Write-up by Brett M. Christensen


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