SEATTLE, Former British Colonies (GlossyNews) – On Sunday, the 27th of June, 2010, the headquarters of Glossy News was shocked to receive a notice from the solicitors of Arriva PLC (www.arriva.co.uk ) demanding that Glossy News cease and desist. Due to the failure of the top notch crew at Arriva to enclose a promised attachment, it was some time until analysts at Glossy News could figure out what the hell we were supposed to cease and desist from.
The story becomes even more scandalous when we discovered that we were to remove an article pertaining to a popular tourist activity in London, jolly old England. The story in question: London bus tour appeared in June of 2009. Yes, fair reader, over a year ago. What shocked us most was that anyone was even able to find the story.
When we re-read the story, it was again unclear as to what exactly Arriva was complaining about. Arriva PLC is the parent company of “The Original Tour”, which makes its money conveying tourists around London in double decker buses with no tops on (the buses, luckily the tourists are fully clothed). But, since the article makes no mention of Arriva PLC or “The Original Tour,” our analysts returned to our mobile command post at Starbucks, once again empty handed.
Undaunted, we sent our analysts back to scrutinize the material further, and sure enough, in the wee hours of the afternoon, one of them spotted the offending item.
It seems that the photograph used in the article, a picture shot by a private tourist and NOT OWNED by Arriva or the Organic Tour, was shown to contain, when examined under a microscope and enhanced for human view, a picture of a tour bus with a faint sign that read “The Original Turd,” or words to that effect.
At this point, we realized that we had gone past the three-hour deadline for response imposed by Arriva’s solicitor. Of course, we received it 13 hours after it was sent, as we were all asleep when it arrived at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday. It seems Justice never sleeps in the UK, and if it does, it isn’t aware of the various time zones lain out across the globe.
Of course, three hours or three days, we had no intention of being intimidated by someone’s letterhead. Our savvy legal team at Glossy News reminded us that lawyers don’t make the law, thank god. Assuming they really ARE lawyers.
Obviously the good folk at Arriva PLC, when trying to figure out why their sales have slumped, determined that, rather than the possibility that the international economic collapse may have played at least a minor role, the entire reason their profits are down is because Glossy News published a little-read story about an imaginary tour company and happened to use someone’s holiday picture of a blurry image of one of their buses. An image which, we now have come to understand through Arriva’s ‘solicitors’, is completely owned and controlled by Arriva even though they never knew it existed.
So we sit today, waiting for the angry British rabbit which is Arriva PLC to pop like a Christmas cracker, so we can all go about our business of writing stuff that only halfwits and nincompoops would get flustered over. And, as my mother used to say, if the shoe fits, wear it.
Arriva PLC
1 Admiral Way
Doxford International Business Pk,
Sunderland SR3 3XP, United Kingdom
0191 520 4000