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SCMP Reporter

JOHN Muncy of Hongkong Chinese Bank and Terry Flanagan of the Bank of California in Hongkong decided to take a look at Vietnam recently.

  As usual, it had taken them months to get hotel rooms booked, because of the shortage of rooms there.

  They eventually got rooms booked for the whole trip, and set off with high expectations.

  All was fine in Ho Chi Minh City, but when they went north to Hanoi, the Pullman Metropole informed them that there were no reservations in their names.

  As the hotel was overbooked, there were no rooms available.

  John and Terry did not fancy sleeping on the street, so a number of phone calls to Hongkong followed.

  Finally, the embarrassed travel agent in Hongkong informed them that the Vietnamese agent had booked the two rooms under the name ''guest''.

  Armed with this information, they went back to the hotel, and were promptly given rooms.

  So now you know. Introduce yourself to the Hanoi reservations clerk thus: ''I am Mr Hotel-Guest and this is my friend, who is also called Mr Hotel-Guest.''  Life of Brian  BRIAN Brown of Hongkong Polytechnic was looking surprised at a recent recruitment ad.

  His colleagues from the Department of Rehabilitation Sciences were looking for someone to work with people who have a ''Traumatic Brian Injured Relative''.

  Brian protested his innocence. ''I'd like to issue a firm denial. I haven't injured anyone's relatives,'' he said.

 Creativity  IT is always a delight to read newspapers from the Philippines. There's a kind of God-fearing innocence about them which is refreshing in the cynical '90s.

  Nita Barnett of Robins Hongkong, Loss Adjusters, sent us a cutting from the Philippine Star which features a rather odd mix of godliness and advertising slogans. The really weird thing is that it is meant to be taken entirely seriously.

  God is like Coke . . . He's the real thing.

  God is like Hallmark cards . . . He cares enough to send the very best.

  God is like Tide . . . He gets the stains out that others leave behind.

  God is like VO5 Hair Spray . . . He holds through all kinds of weather.

  God is like Sears . . . He has everything.

  God is like Scotch tape . . . You can't see him but you know he's there.

  Curious how Hongkong advertising slogans don't work with this game.

  God is like Lane Crawford . . . He is temptation.

  See? Our slogans are better for the chap with the horns and the forked tail.

 Double negative  WE like the way Great Eagle boss Lo Ka-shui said his firm's drop in net profit last week was due to the ''negative contribution'' from Citibank Plaza.

  What is a negative contribution, anyway? It wouldn't by any chance be a euphemism for a four-letter word beginning with 'L', would it?   What do Great Eagle executives say if they suffer losses at the races? ''I have achieved a negative contribution to my savings''? Hit for sex  THE plot thickens. Remember that rabidly sexist letter which appeared in the Kowloon Cricket Club magazine about the men-only snooker room (''We need a refuge to escape the clucking, finger wagging chitter chatter of the ladies'')?   We criticised the writer for not signing this letter, which upset some of the female members.

  Well, now we know why it did not come with a genuine, identifiable signature.

  The writer was a woman, we are informed by a reliable source. No wonder she doesn't want her name revealed. Hell hath no fury like a feminist scorned, or even not scorned.

   Impressive  ANOTHER signpost-with-missing-letters story. We are told that the Hongkong Press Club used to be at the Joe Bananas end of Wan Chai, near a girlie bar.

  The nightclub owner put up a huge sign, stretching virtually right across the road, saying TOPLESS CLUB.

  But almost immediately, the first two letters of neon short-circuited. The nightclub owner never bothered to get it fixed.

  As a result, for two years, the Press Club had a huge, expensive sign outside saying ''PLESS CLUB''.

 Lloyd's lost  LLOYD'S of London sent us some promotional material for corporate diaries.

  The slogan was: ''Give them a gift they'll remember the whole year.''   Lloyd's is good at giving long-lasting presents. Wonder how long it will take the Keswick family to make up the huge losses they were landed with by Lloyd's last year?  East is Eden  WE got some stick from knowledgeable readers for our piece about the Sichuan peasant leader. His name is Zhang De An, but gremlins changed this before printing to Zhang Dean.

  Mind you, the name Zhang Dean set a few readers thinking. Pete Gallo suggested that he would be a good candidate for some James Dean-type films.

  He suggested some possible titles:   Rebel Without a Car   Citizen Zhang   Boulevard of Broken Production Quotas 



Bankers never guest what was wrong