Hungarian tourist board faces fake shark accusation

Dad brought a page of the Budapest Times back from Hungary for me to read. Couldn’t help posting it. Ireland definitely needs more reporters like this.

Montenegro shark “Hungarian ruse”

Hungarian Tourist Board operatives have been dressing up as sharks and patrolling seaside resorts in Montenegro in an effort to encourage tourists to holiday at Lake Balaton, the Montenegrin government alleged last week.

Sharks have been sighted off the coast of the popular holiday destination over the last few weeks, leading in one case to a lifeguard - who witnesses say looked a lot like Baywatch’s David Hasselhoff except in tighter shorts - frantically ordering people out of the water. However, government spokesman Slobodan Mladic claimed the “sharks” were nothing of the sort.

Something fishy in the wate

“We have credible information that Zsolt Zoltán, a local employee of the Hungarian Tourist Board and well-known agitator for affordable weekend breaks at Lake Balaton, is responsible,” said Mladic. “We believe he has in fact fashioned a shark fin using empty cereal boxes, sticky-backed plastic and some model aircraft paint, strapped it to his back and taken to snorkelling around the beaches. He is clearly trying to scare people into holidaying in Hungary.”

Mladic produced records showing that Zoltán had rented out all three Jaws movies from the local video store in the week preceding the first shark sighting. “This clearly proves that Zoltán was researching how to fake a shark attack,” said Mladic. “I’m not sure which Jaws film it was in – probably the first one, as the other two were rubbish and I fell asleep during them – but I distinctly remember a scene where a teenager pretends to be a shark to frighten some large-breasted girls into having sex with him.”

“I think he then gets his leg bitten off, but I suppose that’s not relevant,” Mladic continued.

Zoltán denied the allegations, saying that he did not have to go to such lengths to attract people to Balaton: “With its crystal-clear waters, top-class accommodation, wonderful food and copious amounts of women in tiny thongs, Balaton is clearly a holiday destination that needs no promotion. Just look at the beautiful pictures in this free flyer.”

Zoltán just a pervert, not agent

Zoltán did admit to renting out the Jaws trilogy, but said that he simply got a perverse kick out of watching monsters kill people in increasingly gratuitous, pointless and bloody ways.

“I also rented out Friday the Thirteenth last week, but that doesn’t mean I’m planning on donning a hockey mask and brutally butchering holidaymakers with various sharp implements in an attempt to create a mass exodus from the shabby, poor quality Montenegrin resorts to the paradise that is Balaton,” he said. “Having said that, there is a good deal on chainsaws down at the local DIY store.”

Original article at the Budapest Times