My most recent
Is buying a 17 year old Golf GTi, spending a grand getting it into useable, reliable condition and then getting bitten by a desire to own a Scirocco.

There goes another two grand then!

Petrolheads, the poorest of all the hobbyists.
( Kroney, Thu 1 Nov 2007, 11:01, 1 reply)

MOOOOOooo!
There is (was) a chain of butchers in the North-West called Dewhursts. In the late 80's they spent tens of thousands (probably) on a radio / newspaper advertising campaign. They came up with a witty catchy slogan.

Alas, the weekend the campaign was launched was the same weekend the BSE Mad cow diesease story broke in the worlds media.

And the catchy slogan?? What else?
"GO MAD THIS WEEKEND, BUY SOME BEEF"
(bugboybeast, Thu 1 Nov 2007, 10:13, 1 reply)

Using my head as a brake....
....now I can't remember my own Wedding day lol

Signed R. Hammond
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Thu 1 Nov 2007, 10:12, Reply)

Meh
It should have had at least an honorary mention by now, but, on a premise weaker than that played out in a porno I once saw, where a bloke got bitten on the cock by a rattlesnake and lo! who should come along but a helpful maiden to suck the poison out, the current cost of this debacle is $465 billion,

www.nationalpriorities.org/Cost-of-War/Cost-of-War-3.html

/shrugs/littlebitofpolitiks
(Countryslicker, Thu 1 Nov 2007, 9:56, Reply)

Potentially a very expensive mistake... two ships in the night...
I do hope this is true. Apparently it's a transcript of a radio conversation released by the US Chief of Naval Operations in 1995.

ship 1: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.

ship 2: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

ship 1: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

ship 2: No. I say again, suggest you divert YOUR course.

ship 1. THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS MISSOURI, WE ARE A LARGE WARSHIP OF THE US NAVY. DIVERT YOUR COURSE NOW!

ship 2. This is a Canadian lighthouse. Your call.
( String Theory sometimes feeds the sparrows too, Thu 1 Nov 2007, 9:25, 4 replies)

Not really an expensive mistake...
... but in the vein of the "expertsexchange" domain name, we used to wind up one of the Microsoftie admins in a webby company I used to work for by referring to his beloved Microsoft Exchange mailing list as "the Mmmmm Sexchange list".

Actually, the company went tits owing me two month's wages, so I suppose it was a fairly expensive mistake?

Length? About six weeks before I discovered where the ex-boss lived.
(gordonjcp, Thu 1 Nov 2007, 8:42, Reply)

Working in a garage on the YTS
Remember them?

This happened in the late 80's, was seconded from my I.T colleage to a garage in Scunthorpe to do basic office work etc.

On one day the garage had a delivery of battery acid. The storage tank was upstairs (crazy!!) The delivery chap plugged in the pipe and commenced the delivery, he then went for a butty.

A couple of hours later, one of the mechanics noticed that acid was running DOWN the outside of the delivery pipe, alerted the delivery chap(had just started another butty with lashings of tea) he then turned off the pump.

You've probably guessed what has happened, the tank had overflowed, the acid had seeped all over the top floor (wooden floor) and had started to eat into it, therefore weakening the structure.

It also seeped thru the floor, and a deluge had gone into the managers office, burning it's way thru his microfiche machine and his desk (thankfully he was on holiday). The computers went down as it ate it's way thru power cables and network trunking.

Took approx a week before all traces of it was removed and they had to get building inspectors in to check the integrety of the floor.

Needless to say, the battery acid tank was moved downstairs...
(Skeksis 2nd place is 1st loser....., Thu 1 Nov 2007, 8:22, Reply)

My local hospital is state of the art, top 100 in the US, etc etc.
A couple of years ago they obtained an ultra-expensive pharmacy robot named TUG which scoots around the hospital delivering medication to various units. It's pretty much a complicated talking refrigerator on wheels - it knows its way around the hospital, can operate elevators, and dispense the proper prescriptions to the proper units.

This is totally awesome apart from the fact that it can't open doors. Instead it bashes into the door over and over while repeating "PLEASE MOVE ASIDE" until someone comes along and opens it. This can take a seriously long time, especially at night.

Stupid robot.

edit: I forgot the incident where TUG accidentally found its way into a heart patient's room at night. It sat there going "BEEP. PLEASE MOVE ASIDE. BEEP. BEEP. PLEASE MOVE ASIDE," bashing into the bed repeatedly. Needless to say the poor woman was scared shitless.
( trintrin has jam for blood, Wed 31 Oct 2007, 21:38, Reply)

Mine air analysis
Carbon monoxide in underground coal mine air is usually present but indicates problems if it starts to increase above a few parts per million. Mine thinks they have a problem, I analyse the air, get 0.0006% CO, which is a bit high but not anything to panic about. I phone the safety officer and tell him "point three zeroS six". He writes ".306". CALLOUT. Mines Rescue teams on standby, we fly to the mine on a chartered plane, mine closes for 48 hours.

We installed a telex machine a few months later. This was about 1978 so no email existed.

Lesson -
Never say anything over the phone which is capable of being misinterpreted. Don't gabble mutter or mumble on the phone. They cannot see your face and do not know whether they are writing down what you mean. If they have to write it down, say it at dictation speed.

Use fax or email for anything numerical. If some message you get looks dodgy, call back and confirm. Not funny I know but at least no canaries suffered.
(Redemption blamed it on the Bossa Nova since, Wed 31 Oct 2007, 21:15, 1 reply)

I've got another poo story if anyone wants to hear it.
And I could throw in some sizzling gypsies for good measure?
(Vic Flange, Wed 31 Oct 2007, 20:02, 1 reply)

One more from me..
I also knew a fella who owned a fleet of articulated lorries, and they specialised in moving very sensitive electronic equipment.
This shipment was rolls of paper. Not sensitive at all, but at the final destination they told the recipients that a roll had fallen on a motorway and would be best if they would claim on the insurance.
No Can Do.
It has to be recovered.
No Ifs, No Buts, recovery is the only possible outcome.
Police were called, the road sealed off, helicopters etc etc etc just to pick up a roll of paper, Bank Note Paper! one decent set of plates and goodbye to the countries economy
(lordy lordy, Wed 31 Oct 2007, 19:47, 1 reply)

A Sparky I once knew
Was rewiring an old windmill that someone had bought and was refurbishing the whole of the inside and turning it into a house.
Every room was circular, and so everything that was to be fitted had to be especially made to fit, and the kitchen is where this blunder took place.
Having measured the circumference the Kitchen designers wrote down all the measurements, and no doubt drew up a plan of the place, submitted the information, most likely over a two way walkie talkie because the curved worktops arrived soon after with the arc of the wall transferred to the inside arc of the worktop, and subsequently it wouldn't fit. God knows how much it cost, but I would have thought it was good for nothing more than a rubbish skip.
(lordy lordy, Wed 31 Oct 2007, 19:40, Reply)

A bit off-topic, but...
On the train heading home, there was a chav girl on a mobile, regaling us all with tales of her exciting life in as loud a voice as possible. Imagine Barry Scott in female form, draped in Burberry.

She was talking about someone called Kev and what a twat he was, and, just as I was managing to blank her out, she came out with, "and then I shat meself. Yeah, I actually shat meself..."

Seeing as Burberry tracksuits can cost upwards of a tenner, that's gotta be an expensive accident.

No?
(Pavlov's Frog figures no-one really reads sigs anyway, Wed 31 Oct 2007, 18:42, 5 replies)

Not me, but the EU
As the EU Presidency wagon train rolled around Ireland spraying money about like a US army accountant in a war zone I was enlisted to provide an interpretation system for a press conference at the K club golf club.

My job was to be a technician on stand by for the week of meetings, prepared for the moment when a decision be reached by the fois gras snorting euro chumps that was momentous enough to be shared with the world. We were in a massive marquee pegged into a fairway with loads of lighting, sound and interpreting gear costing probably €10,000 a day, 10 interpreters on €1100 a day each and 5 techs on €500 a day.

For the whole week all we handled was one 20 minute press conference.

Thank you EU. That was a sweet little holiday, sponsored by you and Mr. Guiness. I haven't shifted the stone I put on in the 6 years it's been since then.
(bendyness shows you on the brick where he licked her, Wed 31 Oct 2007, 18:36, Reply)

Government department computer systems
'Nuff said?

I've spent the best part of 18 years working in various government departments, and the shocking inability for ministers to develop a tender spec that sets out exactly what they want the computer system to do is nothing short of a disgrace.

Over £30 million in the mid 90's to develop a benefit card system for the post office, and scrapped because they couldn't get it to work properly (they decided to test it on child benefit first, because they reckoned it would be easiest).

Roll out of Jobseekers Allowance in 1996, and the system couldn't get beyond the personal details screen without crashing, resulting in all claims having to be processed manually for the first few days.

The great National Insurance switchover, where all the data stored on one system would be automatically transferred to a new, better system overnight. They switched off NIRS1, only to find that a stupidly high proportion of data hadn't transferred to NIRS2 as it was supposed to. Result, more manual processing of all benefit claims, meaning claims taking around 2 weeks to process instead of the average 3 days while we waitied for the NI records to be retrieved.

And recently, I worked for Defra, where the most complex system for processing Common Agriculture Policy payments has been adopted by the UK, in contrast to the rest of the EU, who took the simplest option. Thousands of farmers not receiving their payments on time, antiquated computer system (honestly, you needed 3 separate systems just to pay 1 claim, it used to drive me mad). New super-system not working properly, resulting in out of date data, adding to the problem. Millions paid out to farmers in compensation, and Defra being fined millions for being, frankly, shite.

I could go on...

Want to make a mint in IT? Be come a government contractor, fuck it up, and go away with a nice little payoff courtesy of the tax payer (Legless, take note - there's a fortune waiting for you in IT mis-management. All you need to do is become incompetent in all matters IT overnight. Might take a bit of doing, but I'm sure a man of your prodigious talents could do it...)
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Wed 31 Oct 2007, 17:58, Reply)

Company I worked for
back in the early 90s decided to have a "makeover". This involved a shite mission statement concocted from a Tesco Value book of management-speak and the expense of letting some "experts" come up with a logo. The grand unveiling day arrived and we sat awaiting the reveletion to come. "This new logo represents solidity and strength,values of the company; the colour is warm, yet powerful"...you get the picture anyway. Eventually this wonder was revealed to the assembled throng. A red square with the company initials in white on it. £30,000 for a fucking red square.
( Infidel , shit and wrong, Wed 31 Oct 2007, 17:11, Reply)

Some tales from history
1) The Egyptian pharoah Cheotep ordered a vast underground vault to be built to contain his remains when he died. 400,000 slaves toiled for 23 years to complete it, and then he had them all slaughtered to avoid grave-robbers finding out the location. Oops! He had forgotton to ask them where they built it. He was buried in a shed.

2) American billionaire JD Rockerfeller didn't want to buy just any watch. He wanted the most expensive watch in the world. So esteemed Swiss manufacturer Breuget fashioned a pocket watch from an apple-sized diamond on a strap of woven platinum. The watch was so valuable that it had to be kept in a safe at all times for insurance purposes and he had to carry the safe everywhere in a wheelbarrow, opening it when he wanted to know the time. Unfortunately, his clumsy manservant slipped one day while wheeling the safe up the gangplank to a yacht and it sank beyond the reach of divers.

3) Chinese emperor Qui Fung was a man of grand gestures. He ordered that a palace be built out of pure gold. After 37 years, his dream had been realised and he was invited to it's grand unveiling. Unfortunately, he had been dead for the last 17 years and no one had told the builders. The palace was used to keep lawnmowers.

4) Hollywood star Angelina Jolie was at a party and heard some English tourists talking about curry. She asked them which was the best curry house in Britain and they replied that it was Delhi Dreams in Bradford. Quick as a flash, she got on the phone and arranged to have a selection of dishes flown directly to her by private jet. Just four hours later, the dishes arrived and she tasted them... only to discover that she was violently allergic to cumin and coriander. It all went in the bin and she'd wasted 47.000 dollars.

5) Eccentric Venezuelan billionaire Jose Cuava had always wanted to spend his dying days in the most beautiful place on Earth. He arranged to be flown to the Maldives, where he would bob in the sea and breathe his last. Unfortunately, his cloth-eared pilot misheard the destination and Jose crashlanded in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, on a rainy Wednesday afternoon.
(frankspencer, Wed 31 Oct 2007, 17:03, 2 replies)

Not expensive, but common
queue - as in standing in the queue.
cue - as in cue me getting a bollocking.
que - pronounced "k" as in manuel from fawlty towers.

I'm only a pedant when I'm tired, sorry.
(Lannes, Wed 31 Oct 2007, 16:46, 8 replies)

Garages
My old VW Golf was hardly the paragon of German reliability that the adverts proclaimed. In fact, it went wrong. A lot and at almost Alfa Romeo-esque expense levels.

In the same way my Alfa 156 ate air-mass meters (which cost £200 for a length of drainpipe with a bit of wire shoved in it), my Golf loved nothing more than to lunch a fuel pump. The impending fuel pump death would be forewarned by a high pitched annoying whine from the underside of the car - as opposed to the high pitched annoying whine in the car, which was my ex wife. Only one of which could be fixed with a 5lb hammer unfortunately.

Anyway, having spent £165 on getting a faulty and 36,000 mile old fuel pump replaced, the car starts to misfire and the dreaded whine is back. Further investigation reveals that the Mk 2 Golf has TWO fuel pumps, one under the car and the other in the petrol tank. The latter can be bought for £38 and requires nothing more than a jubilee clip to fit it. Price from VeeDub? £100.

Kerching! Decision made, I'm in the boot of the car removing the access flap to the petrol tank. I have to unscrew a large, plastic cap, pull out the wires and unplug the fuel pump on the end of it before reversing this process.

Job's a good 'un. Fucking garages, what do they know...

Six weeks later it's MOT time. Apparently the seal on my petrol tank was faulty, which necessitated a service engineer undoing the large screw cap and doing it up again.

Total cost for this job? £100...
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Wed 31 Oct 2007, 16:22, 8 replies)

Thrown away
a lot of old Star Wars Toys (in a very good shape) a few weeks before Episode I was announced ... damn.
(FoxA / DannyWeinkauf, Wed 31 Oct 2007, 15:47, 1 reply)

Expensive Champagne
Friend of mine from work took his good wife away on a weekend in Paris. He ordered them a bottle of £70 champers which he thought was a bargain. It was only when he remarked how good value the coffee was at 50p a go that she pointed out that he had his maths wrong and the coffee was actually £5. The light bulb went on and he realised that his bargain £70 bottle had just cost him £700! He did say that he wondered why two waiters had come to the room when the bottle arrived...
(FiatPanda, Wed 31 Oct 2007, 15:36, 2 replies)

A life of vice
I had a wheel bearing go on my car once. So rather than put it in to the garage to be fixed, I thought I'd save money by asking my mate with a well equipped workshop if I could do it there with his help. He agreed.

So anyway, off came the hub carrier, and we bashed out the old bearing and cleaned up the hub ready to accept the new bearing. Not having a proper press, we decided to use his bench vice to press the new bearing in. All was well for the first few mm, then it got stiff (stop sniggering at the back) so we decided to apply a bit more leverage.

Two metal tubes over the ends of the vice handles later (with one of us pulling each end) and we were in business. The plan was entirely successful until the screw sheared on the vice. Of course a vice is designed to withstand the force a normal human can apply using the supplied handle, not two of us going full tilt with levers.

Anyway, we got the bearing in eventually by use of brute force, and refitted the hub to the car. The test drive then showed the ABS was no longer working. So I thought we'd damaged the sensor when we removed it.

Cost of a new sensor? £150. Bugger.

Got one from a scrapped car for £20. Fine. But it didn't help. And why? Because we'd fitted the wrong fecking bearing, that's why. It was supposed to have the ABS sensor ring on it, and the new one didn't.

So I drove it without ABS until the next MoT, when I had to have another new bearing fitted.

I now tend to trust this sort of job to the professionals. They may not make any better a job, but if they make an arse of it, at least I don't have to pay!

Wheel bearing - £30
New vice - £300
ABS Sensor - £20
New bearing - another £100 fitted.
Learning by experience - priceless.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Wed 31 Oct 2007, 13:45, Reply)

Not expensive in terms of money, but in terms of life experience
After snogging both 20 year-old blondes, I have no idea what made me accept a lift back to Camden instead of staying at their place.

Especially afterwards, when I found out what they got up to in my absence.

I'm an idiot.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Wed 31 Oct 2007, 13:44, 7 replies)

More of a 'thank feck it never happened...'
I work for an aircraft ground support company and (as I'm kind of well spoken and polite) get to go onsite a lot of the time.

Few years back we got a contract in Beirut to service and test their aircraft jacks. As one of the only people in the company with a valid passport, the boss asked if I'd like to go - of course, having grown up with Beirut on the news due to the civil war going on, I jumped at the chance (I'm off the drugs now).

Anyhoo, we're working away quite well, then Tim decides he needs to visit the 'little Arab's room' so off he trots leaving me to pressure test this 50 tonnes capacity jack with NO instruction.

So I merrily jack it up to it's full height, then proceed to put the full 50 tonnes pressure onto it - any by hand using a small pump, that's no easy feat.

Tim comes back and says "what load did you put on it?"
"50 tonnes," says I with a proud smile. Cue a VERY strange look and Tim practically flew to undo the pressure release valve. When the jack was fully retracted, the only thing holding the 50kg, 1200mm long ram inside the jack was basically a circlip, albeit about 10mm thick, and this circlip was so out of shape from having this massive pressure* put onto it.

Now, we were working at the airport, and there was a MASSIVE troop barracks next door...can you imagine if that circlip had failed, resulting in a 1200mm, 50kg lump of steel hurtling through the hangar roof and probably into the barracks?

Actually, it did render the jack unusable, but the cost to replace was about £4000 so not that expensive I guess...

*In normal usage, the pressure would be on the top of the ram, not just pressurising against the cylinder collar.

Length: 120mm
Girth: 200mm
( snee held his breath since, Wed 31 Oct 2007, 13:32, 1 reply)

Not me, thank god.
This was a very expensive mistake, in more ways than I can count. Google image search for her if you dare. Oh, and at the bottom of the page is a link to a video- very appropriate for Halloween!
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Wed 31 Oct 2007, 13:15, 6 replies)

My missus
..threw a winning scratchcard away, worth £2,000.


I'm still with her,
until I can think of a suitable punishment.
(CaptainSpaulding is the leader of the lost cause., Wed 31 Oct 2007, 13:05, 1 reply)

Ooh it Burns!
I reckon this transformation counts as an expensive mistake.
( abefroman skating on the thin life of modern life on, Wed 31 Oct 2007, 13:00, 3 replies)

First solo flight
When you learn to fly you are expected to complete a minimum of 10 solo hours before you are allowed to attempt your PPL test. Obviously this doesn't happen until your instructor thinks you're capable but on hindsight I think mine put me up for solo a bit too soon.

Pre-flight checks, taxi, takeoff, radio calls and a couple of circuits were all fine and I was feeling pretty confident about coming in for a touch-and-go (land and then immediately take off again). Only for me turn into final approach and find that I had lost so much height on the turn I was rapidly heading into an electricity pylon. Much over compensation later and I'm skidding my way, left wing first, into a nearby field.

Damage? One irate farmer, £25,000 worth of damage to the plane and some new underwear.
(quantum raspberry quizzically quashing Quebecans, Wed 31 Oct 2007, 12:55, Reply)

Never hack off an advertiser
This is a true story, but somewhat 4th-hand, so forgive me if the background detail is a little hazy. The end result is still the same though.

Some years ago, in the North East, there was a chap who worked in advertising. Now, apparently, said chap's employer did something to really piss him off, so he left the company. But not before finishing off his final piece of work, which was a Yellow Pages ad for a Tyneside-based tennis club. Not just a 'come and play tennis with us 'cos we're the dog's whatnots' type ad, but a full line illustration type ad, about 4" by 4" on the printed page.

Being a tennis club, a piccie of a male tennis player, in suitably dynamic tennis-playing pose, was deemed to be an appropriate image to boost the club's profile. So advertising chap duly draws up said picture of bloke in blokey tennis pose. Wearing shorts. With his knob hanging out.

Quite how it got past the advertising company's proof reading stage is one of advertising's great mysteries, but the finished ad did indeed end up in copies of the Yellow Pages, right across the North East of England.

Expense? Not sure, but how much would it cost to print several hundred thousand copies of the Yellow Pages and then realise that about two thirds of the way through there's a drawing of a man playing tennis with his knob out?

Length? About half a centimetre once it was printed...
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Wed 31 Oct 2007, 12:45, 2 replies)

Ebay
I purchased a second hand playstation off ebay for £200 and received a box with a dead cat in it. I should've read Leyxias feedback.
(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Wed 31 Oct 2007, 12:12, 9 replies)