TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (304)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of The Telegraph (from Thursday, January 20; link good at time of posting):

John Button, father of the Formula One driver [Jenson Button], told police that he feared his Ferrari 550 had been swiped from where he parked it in the town of Alassio, on the Italian Riviera.

For more than 48 hours, between Saturday and Monday, police scoured the area for the £50,000 supercar.

But it slowly dawned on Mr Button, 65, a former rally cross driver, that in fact he had confused Alassio with a neighbouring town, Laigueglia, which has an almost identical layout and lies less than a mile along the coast.

He retraced his steps and sure enough, the Ferrari was parked just where he left it.

"It's all a bit embarrassing, but the roads that lead into Alassio and Laigueglia are almost identical, even the railings look the same, and they both have a fork in them," Mr Button told The Daily Telegraph yesterday.

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