| 1. Byron | | | | 4. William Buckley |
| In 1824 the immoderate libertine found himself in | | | | With an astonishingly strong claim for 'Worst Holiday |
| Messolonghi, consorting with Alexandros | | | | Ever', we have William Buckley. Transported to |
| Mavrokordatos on how best to recapture the | | | | Australia in 1803 for stealing a piece of cloth, Buckley |
| Turkish fortress of Lepanto for Greece. Falling ill in | | | | and a group of fellow convicts managed to escape |
| mid-february he responded badly to the treatment | | | | their prison ship onto the shores of modern day |
| of 'bleeding', eventually developing a fever from | | | | Victoria. By now alone and lost in an unreal landscape |
| which he never recovered. With the choice of | | | | of venomous creatures he was taken in by the |
| repatriation offered by a basic travel insurance policy, | | | | Wautharong Aborigines. After 32 years of an |
| would he have stayed and lost his life before the | | | | affectionate life amongst this new community he |
| battle began? We will never know. | | | | was rediscovered by a European settler ship in 1835. |
| 2. Hannibal | | | | Officially pardoned and then hired as an interpreter he |
| A nightmare proposition for any insurance broker. | | | | soon became disenchanted and left for Van Diemen's |
| "You're taking those elephants where...?". Still, most | | | | Land, where he lived until his death in 1856 in as much |
| holiday insurance policies would have offered ample | | | | obscurity as he had lived. Madness, we say! He should |
| compensation for the loss of a third of Hannibal's | | | | have milked his holiday insurance for all it was worth |
| army and most of his cavalry. With that kind of | | | | and retired to a beach-side mansion in Queensland. If |
| financial muscle, which was apparently unforthcoming | | | | it had existed. |
| from Carthage, very little would have stopped a | | | | 5. Odysseus |
| march on Rome herself. Ah, what could have been... | | | | If there's anyone that could benefit from travel |
| 3. Napoleon | | | | insurance, even cheap travel insurance, then it's |
| Mired in snow and mud, starving hungry and marching | | | | Odysseus. What if the Trojans decided to press |
| towards an enemy that fled before their every | | | | charges after he sneakily trashed their city with his |
| approach, Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 was | | | | wooden horse? Surely there's some mental trauma |
| as catastrophic an experience as the Frenchman had | | | | involved in trawling through Hades? Just how many |
| even known. With a monstrous trail of dead behind | | | | shipwrecks was this man involved in? Slaughtering the |
| them the French took Moscow, only to find the city | | | | cattle of the sun-god Helios was definitely a bad |
| razed and barren. Now, if travel insurance premiums | | | | choice too. Now, he may be mythical, but these are |
| had been top of his concerns, who knows how | | | | things that concern a dedicated insurance broker and |
| Napoleon's plans would have developed? Perhaps, | | | | all we're saying is that if he'd had the support of a |
| without finding a broker crazy enough to support | | | | decent policy behind him maybe it wouldn't have |
| him, le petit caporal would have stayed in Corsica and | | | | been such an Odyssey afterall. |
| become a lawyer like his father. Or perhaps not. | | | | |