The Galactic Administration's Vacation Investigation Noodle

An intergalactic government organisation that told people to go on completely appalling holidays on purpose. Formally the organisation was called the Galactic Administration's Vacation Investigation Committee which, it has to be said, is a far more sensible name. However 'committee' was changed to 'noodle' as the initials spelt out 'GAVIN', which being the current, and by all freaks of nature, every single Galactic president's name or nickname so far, their grant was increased ten-fold: the moral being you can put up with a silly name if you are getting lots of money for it.

Anyway, they investigated over forty billion holidaying beings and noticed, when the results were compiled, a number of surprisingly obvious things that no-one had really noticed before:

1) Beings all over the universe generally holiday for about five percent of their year, whatever that might be. The remaining ninety-five percent is spent working in some way or another. (This situation is reversed on Axis-Minor where they work for only five percent of the year. But then for some reason everyone on the planet is a politician and so these results were ignored).

2) Those beings who go on expensive luxury cruises, or to similarly expensive beautiful worlds are ultimately annoyed on their return home. The problem is that they realise with a bit of a shock that their home is nowhere near as good as where they holidayed and were annoyed on holiday for precisely the same reason.

3) Those supposedly unlucky beings who had a really terrible time on their holiday were far more appreciative of their home when they returned. They realised what a great place it was and so remained at least content for the ninety-five percent of the year they spent at home. For the remainder of their time on the holiday from hell they had a pretty good reason to get entirely drunk for the duration and so ended up relatively happy there as well.

It was discussed that being content for the most part and drunk for the minor (or though most of the committee tried desperately to reverse this) was better than being miserable all of the time. So the GAVIN recommended that everyone have a really appalling holiday on purpose. The report was heavily criticised by many as being complete and utter nonsense and beings said how they had a wonderful time on the marbled, purple beaches of Quantelous Five. Others remarked was a pleasant relaxing vacation they had at one of the many skiing resorts at the snow valleys of Shtenterzon Minor. And even so, they were still perfectly happy when they got home. The government said no they hadn't had a good holiday and any joy was the figment of a deranged mind and if they didn't believe that they would be hunted down and shot.

It has to be said that many of these now strangely quiet and government supporting beings, were particularly suspicious of the seventeen new government-financed travel agents set up to specialise in these appalling holidays. This was enhanced by the fact that these holidays cost around eight times the amount of a universal cruise, or a typical starter at the Restaurant as the End of the Universe. These government owned travel shops persisted through the suspicion and now actually do more business than those agencies that specialise in going somewhere nice. Whether this was due to the governments strange way of influencing the general public, or their earlier findings that almost half of the universe's occupants have about as much brain power as a small lemon, or more than likely both, no-one knows for sure. Business is positively flourishing, particularly for Depress-o-Tours, who specialise in going to Earth for a price a little under that of which you could buy a good chunk of one of the Zeaon Sapphire moons, an entire meal for four at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, or for that matter the whole of planet Earth itself. A rip-off by all accounts.