Re: "...spent the next week languishing in the Excelsior Hotel..."
@JeffyPoooh
"...such an interesting place."*
My late father-in-law worked at the Post Office in the sixties and seventies in Cape Town. According to him one of his colleagues were sent to sort out a problem with the microwave link (telephone) in a little place called Garies, which really is in the middle of nowhere (-30.567357, 17.988452, if you are interested).
He drove out on a Sunday, so that he could get to work early on the Monday morning, and fixed the problem early on in the morning. Once he was done he called his boss to find out if there was not perhaps anything else to attend to, since he was already there in any case, so his boss told him to sit tight and monitor the original problem, to make sure that it was fixed.
A week later he called his boss to find out whether he should get back to the office, only to be told not to call again, but to stay there until his boss told him to come back.
Three weeks later, when his boss handed out pay-packets, he wanted to know whether anyone knew what had happened to this guy, only to be told that he was still propping up the bar and playing darts and pool on S&T. Seems that the boss had completely forgotten about recalling him.
* Unless you are a photographer, there really is not much else to do.
---------> We're having a braai, with me doing the honours!