Home is where the WiFi is

Expats excel or XL as I probably should use to prove clever dickiness in a world of bytes. Abbreviations, phrases, Buzzwords are used to define one's acumen, one's social strata. Mentioning 'synchronised', 'synergy' and 'paradigm', all in a single presentation keynote speech reacheves levels of smarty pants-ness previously thought open only to the spotty kids with glasses. A photographer blinds one so that I can achieve d-list celebrity staus by way of photographic glory for next year's company brochure and I can be the pin-up of the secretarial ladies and the dartboard of the hairy-backsided engineering team. Although it all could be lost if Keynote speecher says 'para-dig-em'. A career upward curve lost to the English language and its wonderful pronouciation. Paradigm is pronounced 'paradime' and don't ask me why my foreign friends


As a counterpoint, as a nemesis to executive stardom, as a dose of welcoming humility, one returns to home - the teenage home. The family pilgrimage to one's roots. Here paradigm would not get me past first base in either baseball or a blind date...para-what-never-mind-igem-or-imes- get-me a-Guiness-you-tosser. Here I am a now stranger, here the world has shifted so slightly that I am now a sore thumb, a digit on the backside of this valley, and a middle finger to the outer world. Here a life has changed, the buzzwords are a new slang spoken by faces I kind of know ... faces that were young, fit, lean and are now podgy, faces of former friends, old brothers in arms. They speak a new slang, new words having nuances known to this year's generation. One has become lost in time, a parallel universe corrupted by a new language, the new terms, I ahve lost a sense of one's roots. Slowly as one has moved seemingly upward, the place where one belonged has shifted sideways to another place. Home is not quite the home, it once was, perhaps ever was. And yet home is not the outer world, where I live.

Home is in no man's land, not the home of Residency papers. It is not the home of the Birth Certificate.

Home has been relocated to a virtual field in the blogosphere, a gypsy home of friends temporal, friends near forgotten, friends aging in step changes of quirky "Facebook" photos that resembles a United Nations 'most wanted' list, friends animated into a "Wee-me" cartoon, and interconnected by a mouse double-click. Home a hotel lobby with a computer sitting on knees on some distant continent touching base via E-mail with fingers dextrous to the eye, where once touching base actually involved fingers. Human touch relegated to a passing visit or a school reunion. Friends Reunited should be Friends Divided.


And Mam wishes one lived around the corner to post the card, pick-up the pension, do the shopping. So this is the dream they wanted for their son, to be seen once a year, her annual event, grandchildren are an occasional photograph with a weekly telephone commentary on a Mathematics test to prove life goes on without you...... and Facebook is beyond her athritic single click. What sort of son am I? Absent by a university education that parents sacrificed little things to make happen, to be the first in the family to rise to such academic heights, heights that I could climb out of the Valley.

It tis the time to be jolly.....

Ex-pat Christmassing, the best of times as a load of half friends, half wits and good wits gather to discuss which is the best wine, turkey leg or whatever crap joke is in the specially imported crackers; or the worst of times as friends and family are miles away in some distant land reading and half smiling at a crap joke from a cheap cracker.

Or best and worst of times the lottery of guaranteeing to see family and friends and making life that bit more special for everyone, but only if the trains are still running on the leaves on the track, the ice on the runway is de-iced. Returning home becomes an endurance test. A test of airport waiting, entertaining children still excited a bit, but a few minutes later a bit on the point of being bored and running amok.

And then some long hours later the smile, that fleeting tear of a mother, that knows its a bit special this year.

Slowmo - 100 mph to 0 mph in a day

Trouble with holidays is that it takes a while to wind down and once wound down, one can think, one can draw conclusions that have been drowned by the crisis of deadline, one can see the light that blinded, now casts a long shadow on a sad life, one realises one has lived to work, the little red book has cobwebs and is a nasty shade of brown discolouring nearly forgotten names. Saddo comes home.

Fingers that once drummed impatiently at the Big Deal falling down, forefingers that once pointed encouraging at the Powerpoint presentation, thumbs that clenched a pen that initialled a three score and ten pages of memorandum of understandings. Fingers are now entertaining themselves in acrobatic Twiddling thumbs.

The equation that rules this life that Happiness is a function of a pay cheque is queried, until the holiday romance of self delusion faeds and the mortage needs paying, the kids want a super duper thing that has an abbrevaition they understand and means they have kept up with the schoolyard Johanneses and the grind is the ground on which one has built this life.

More than half way through three score and ten years and this is where misunderstandings of the meaning to life is seeded. Fortunately in a fit of what the......True boredom is narrowly avoided by a DVD backlog of viewing and twiddling thumbs can twiddle to the heart's content on a remote control. The Palm D'oh is awarded to the film that caused the least coffee making interruptions and is normally won by Homer Simpson Season last but one.

Homer my hero. Pass me the Duff equivalent and middle age crisis can give way to middle age spread..

Pots and Kettles

A kettle is a kettle and a pot is pot and black is probably a brand of Columbian ..... sometimes things are not black or white. Diplomatic negotiations are sometimes an art of understanding - 'I understand ' does not mean 'Yes'. It sometimes mean 'I understand that you want me to say Yes and I do not want to say No, so I am saying I understand and we are both happy'. Happy until the misunderstanding costs me my job.

I could save my job by coffee...how? .....Coffee conversations are important as career building opportunities. A chance to discreetly compliment the choice of tie, a moment to laugh at a joke that should remain within a Christmas cracker, a miracle of the synchronous nod with my colleagues at the Department's Head visionary vision.
....... over a tepid coffee.


Sadly I like my coffee hot and I like my coffee in my stomach in due time, Call me Mr Kettle.

The Foreigner like an old Lady

The early days of a new home on foreign soil, the excitement, the feeling of all things new, the challenge of all things new, the running around, and around, the new bank account, the boxes, the damaged heirloom, the new lava lamp to thank the kids for putting up with it again, they liked it.




Now a break as months pass by, a little time to compose oneself as months become years have settled into routine of sorts, time at last for finances reviewed, Bank account scanned and what!!!! in the repeating monthly hell is this. Bill is found, contact details found. Call centre is called and matters discussed in pidgin English, she sympathises and refers-defers to public relations who never call back but the letter demanding more comes a new. Pay or else.

One Internet search later, one on-line translation and scammed, grannies scammed, old maiden aunts scammed....... and I skinned and scammed. An ex-pat scammed like a kipper.

Vulnerable, targeted, ripped off like a faded T-shirt.


We never signed the contract, never read a contract, the nagging doubt in those early days a misplaced signature on a German draft placed under nose, surely not, it cannot be. Now a victim as Euros have poured away un-viewed amongst and after the runaround of schooling, working, buying the lava lamp because the kids said it was back in.


The Foreigner abroad like an old lady.

Fitness and the Ex-pat Diet

The Business Trip, the three course meal, the dessert with cream, the apperitif, the wine, the grappa, the whisky chaser...and the trousers no longer fit. New trousers as a result of Business eating should be a justifiable tax exempt Business Expense.


The jet lagged early morning start, the Hotel gym, the cycling machine without the 'how to start' manual. The seat requiring weight training arms to bring it down a sizeable chunk, after the last Gigantuan used it. As the local Adonises pump iron, the superfit Business Manager runs flat out and goes nowhere. I press 'Quickstart' and the wobbling mass appears to disconnect from any bodily reality experience, as out-of-body resonances cause concern to the Building foundations that would frighten a certain Mr Richter. The structural Engineers re-visit their calculations and call for the mandatory increase of safety margins.

Fatties of the Businesss world unite and call for the ban of three course meals, make salads compulsory especially if inducing diet-enhancing diarrhoea. Although come to think of it,that may be the emergency diet option of the fatty.

Return of the Village Idiot

I sit watching 'Sky News' as a remembrance......a lingering link..... a comfy chair look to the Homeland and as a non-link to the Fatherland in which residency papers remain un read and unreadable in this foreign tongue. So I watch TV in a language that makes me feel human, a conduit to intelligent a part of a world that understands me as intelligent. I am alone, the family is on a recky raiding local shops and hopefully using credit cards with a common sense; that there is so many shoes one needs; as unless the radioactive alarm bell has not rung in the last twenty or thirty years we all have only two feet....and shoes come in pairs aswell. I fear I may be wrong and they may be some time.


A phone rings. A phone speaks in tongues to me. I understand. I speak in tongues back. This could be a religious experience and I may need to write a Biblical Apostle in the near future. It is a miracle of understanding. My tongues and her tongues have a common ground in that certain words are common, my tongues and her tongues are different that other certain words are different, possibly wrong in context, possibly incorrect in pronounciation, very probably completely stupid in word order. It is a miracle ....I have regressed.... I st..stut...stut...ter.... I ra...amble..... I am a child......I speak in the equivalent of joined up writing. A psychiatrist could dredge up a significant repressed memories at this point, if only I was not sweating profusely, cursing the fact I could not swear in her tongue and in my own adds to the melee, and I am rumamging the brain for the local word for 'out'. I am an idiot. My partner in speaking tongues is patient and understands I am stupid, she knows this will be some time, but she probably needs to buy some shoes as ladies do.

I speak as if I need to know why the red rectangular block does not fit into the blue circular hole. I have regressed from a Business Executive to a Village Idiot, courtesy of trying to say a simple sentence 'my family is out and please ring later'. She hangs up.

Where is my collection of Learn Alespaneek in 5 days.

Sky News is switched off. A dictionary comes out of the closet.

Retirement by Steps

I did not know him, he sat close to me in a deliberate open plan invasion of my privacy. Body odours could be exchanged at will but were conserved in an air of mutually assured defecation. We talked once daily to say 'Good Morning' and once that ritual was over, got on with working in our own spaces, interacting by an occasional escapee smell that may have explosive concentration levels if they allowed people to smoke in offices now.

A secretary told me the back story for God forbid I actually asked him a question; he had served his time, he was old, he was retiring next week. Today the secretary hovered expectantly, she dangled an envelope expectant of a contribution and I exchanged my donation for some ink on his card, a value-less autograph was taken away. I thought a message of best wishes, no..., somewhat disingenuous, given I knew him by one word and the occasional waft of a doughnut or at least the remnants of a doughnut. I am of the sharing kind, if not solid carbohydrates, I will provides carbon hydrogen for all.

I attended his leaving do, I ate a sausage or two in scant compensation for my donation.

I shook his hand, wished him all the best for the future. I even used his mother tongue in a gesture of forgiveness. It was the done thing, I assumed.


Monday morning came around, a voice as monotonous as the umpteeth 15 earlier months. He was back. A retirement plan was not walking the dog, playing with grandchildren. He was doing 3 days a week. 3 godamnable 3 days a week mocking my working schedule of 5 and whatever was necessary to get the bid out days-a -week. Maybe he did not have a dog or grandchildren. Maybe I was a sugar-cholosterol level maxing out. But dear Lord I was diddled, ... I, like others, had paid for him to go with real money, our hard-earned cash for him to go into the sunset to be remembered by a gravestone. Now he was back like a bad Eurocent, he was back with his space invader tactics, like a 1980's Pacman who does not know that VideoGames are a young man's game, so leave your repetitive biting in the digital graveyard in the internet virtual world.







I want my money back until my open plan space is well and truly mine. Release the gases.

From sunburn to frostbite in less than 24 hours

Am I boring, all I seem to talk about is travel. Or is so much of my life spent on the road, spent being nice to air stewardesses, pretending that it is natural to be closer to a sun than any other of the Pryce generations. An advice tip be nice to stewardesses they bring the coffee, they have the capability to bring me a nice cup of coffee. The fact that I can spill my coffee after several successful feats of balancing during severe turbulence only to be defeated by my own clumsiness at the last hurdle. The last hurdle is brought on by drinking the coffee too quickly, I adopt the scorched earth necking policy of drinking to avoid the coffee invading the cup lip in its bid for freedom, coffeee swelling into the perfect storm and escaping its paper cage and touching the executive shirt. I was afraid....embarrassed of tipping the coffee due to turbulence. Now I have internal blistering of the tonsils. Strange but true normally the coffee in calm seas is tepid, the brandy has a warmer after taste. Maybe I haven't been nice to stewardesses. "Stewardess can I have the extra napkin?"...."Stewardess can you make that a bib?"


The plane lands on foreign soil, I go about doing executive things, the weekend comes, I am invited to a beach by the local agent, the agent is nice and does not resent that his family is alone whilst he is on home turf, but his weekend time is wasted entertaining the out-of-towners.

To cut a long story short. I am a Whitey European. I may have mis-judged my relationship with the local agent. Maybe the local agent does not like me. The sun is shining. I am sitting in shadows. I am not familiar with radiation, reflection and by gum, heat. This Pryce generation is not learning about being close to the Sun. My legs are roasted, blistered to a moonscape in what was minutes and now I must return in a plane to face the European winter, which a week ago when I left was an European autumn. And so much for cracking skin cuts in my long story.


Thankfully my aeroplane coffee was tepid again, I am saved from burning my insides as much as my outsides.

Europe is not so warm. In Europe its bad weather with or without choosing clothing. I am scarf-less, glove-less, overcoat-less, skin-less. As they say there is no bad weather, only poor choice of clothing. I am probably best described as a vesty cyclone in tropical boxer shorts. Did I say bad weather, its a gale out there, its a chill factor that turns Joe Cool into Josephine Frigid. The ballroom is empty. I supect my tepid coffee luck is running out, I expect I may be some time waiting for the taxi.

From its "Its h-h-hot" to "Its c-c-c-old" to " whilst deleting the common obligatory swear word, and it only took a plane ride taking me half way round the world; undertaken with what should be a sound sleep but sadly its a challenge of waking up as bisters pop despite oneself to return to what the rest of this local community call day time. What the whether?

Domestic appliances Gone wild

We came, we saw and we had several meetings and one obligatory site visit. The minor incursion to foreign lands ends in retreat. The necessary verbal jarring may have settled a few scores, now executive bruises are tended by perhaps a medically-approved whisky, perhaps an herbal tea, the journey home has been endured, Business class bed sores are narrowly avoided by extensive turning, a child-size T-shirt bought as a penance for not being there, a make-do present with no discount, an airport taxi has been addressed to a nearby town and a large sum exchanged followed by pennies and a receipt.

Door is opened, a hero has returned. Hero to fix the cupboard draw thats has happened to fall apart of its own accord apparently, the maths problem left unsolved for week requires resolving with an explanation involving something I knew twenty years ago, the washing machine has flooded the laminate floor now crinkled at its edges; and disarmingly the family seems to be calling me Noah. The day has just begun.

A brain on slow-mo now faces a B Movie nightmare, a B Movie where radioactivity is coloured green, what I used to call Sums is now called Mathematics and by damn....Mathematics have gone Quadratic and I appear to have missed the Triatic, let alone Biatic. And as a last straw apparently domestic appliances have gone wild. There is a film-direct -to-DVD to be made here.

I am invited to do things, without a cursory smile, without a merest sign of love, without an obligatory kiss of liking or even recognition. Instead I am given instructions, that I should know where the toolbox is, since I was the one that used it last, .... guilty as charged sir....and the washing machine instruction manual should be...maybe could be in the cardboard box marked "stuff" or was it "kitchen stuff". I am not the bright executive here.

I was a jet-lagged executive about to sign the Big Deal. And by a metamorphosis that should, at least, require eating some spinach, I am a Mathematics teacher, a time travelling student genius and a Handyman.

Roll end credits.

Starving Children of ....

I was taught, if there was food on plate, then within short, there was food in a mouth, and by the magic of biology food in a stomach , a morning constitution and a pattern on a plate that saw sunlight after a lick or two. And now luxury......


An earned salary that can not only talk of food as if there is a difference between an ice cream and sorbet, that for instead of a tea, we now have a wine that needs not a connoiseur to tell your Riojas from Diablos. A ritual of approval has been learnt, sniffing the air, but still the heart prefers a Stout which is unlikley to be served and certainly unlikely to be requested.


An annual Bonus is expected to finance toys that are seldom used to their multi functioning limits. Men's toys, gadgets to forewarn me of meetings, to vibrate at meetings taht I am needed outside a meetiny, to play a game of bricks when bored of executive decision-making.

Technology once envied and dismissed from the wrong side of the shop window is now adorning a belt or necklace or pocket especuially made for the purpose. A middle aged executive as likely a techno-nerd as a living God of Commerce could create. A Techno-Exec who would be lost without his gadgets.

Technology that can survive any Airport metal detector in one's master role in the art of international jet-set travel. A master role faintly hiding frustration with lesser mortals that only fail to remove a belt until a special request is made, passengers having to dump grandmas's scissors because one has not realised it is a dangerous weapon and not a family heirloom, and therefore delay one's passage to the VIP salon by seconds.

And one places a donation to the starving children of Africa to mollify one's guilt in a foreign currency shrapnel in a ledaing airliner charity push and no doubt the starving children of Africa are happy. The pattern in the plate is hidden, perhaps.

Whilst I now hardly ever see the pattern in the plate.


A worm has turned, but turned for the better....?

Going Native

Ever so often, in a remote hotel room, in a remote country, a mobile link is not sufficient to maintain the brain cells synapsing to a homeland and we enter the state of "going native". It may be once upon a time an old codger that once boasted he danced the 'Time Warp' admirably, is now being called upon by a local Latina office girl to dance, obliged to dance once more, challenged as part of Team Building. A bi-polar oppportunity to dazzle or be daft. An unwilling non-native participant who at best knows that each arthritic hip connected still somehow to aching bum muscles have lost the will to sync to a musical beat, muscles super-keen now to remain clenched to a seat, rather than clenching and unclenching to an unknown beat.

But it has to be done, to enter the spirit, and one thanks God at least for the inward entering of alcoholic spirit to soften the embarrassment, to provide a false bravery and an excuse for such appalling dancing tomorrow at the office...... or perhaps not. Perhaps one still is the dancer of old, the funkmaster...one might still have it.

Polite applause is duly provided by the local smiling audience which may mask a genuine appreciation for having a go; or a gentle mocking that begs a question can Europeans dance without a neck or wrists; or worst of all ......one has indeed become an office coffee machine talking point tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, a 2015 Christmas party favourite anecdote .

A Danger sign is waved like a smuggler's lantern warning of the phantom cliffs, daring me in, a Danger sign unfoitunately waived - Do not dance do not drink anymore, because one is not returning to youthful attractiveness and one is not a wee bit suave, because one can bend a knee...slowly. One is not as yet as one with the local populus' dancing skills, because it is not a success if one just manages not to fallover, whilst appearing as if it is one dance slide away from falling over.

It is here that reality check of a bald fat guy wobbling about blushing like a 14 year old, whilst pretending to stare at something in the distance is not a pretty sight. Boasts of "cutting shapes" last night will not probably cut it with the co-workers, sub-workers and uber-workers tomorrow as they giggle into their freshly tepid coffees.

Sanity check is needed before job is lost, passport exchanged and hip replacement is undertaken not by the NHS. Going Native is dangerous stuff.

Once upon a Song

Songs previously condemned as clippity clappetty twangy wangy foreign clatterly clatt claptrap and now by a matter of willing indoctrination of being locally "in", an absorption of cultural assimilation a one-disliked drumbeat tapped out by fingers like a native, a once unknown bunch of verbs are whispered in a hum to the throng as a native might. One even knows the top jingle jangling guitar banjo thingimajig playing names to drop into a conversation. An expert camouflage of the ex-pat abroad, infiltrating the ranks, becoming a rank and file, a native bar for the sunburn.

Once there was feline-a-calling vowels without a forgiving consonant to bring to its earthly end, as eardrums beg fingers to plug ears for fear wax production will not save the day. One once thought that this so-called musioc was several vowels merging discodantly into what can be best described as mating calls of at best tigers or at worst back-alley cats.... somehow are now absorbed as being of meaningful cultural character......of historical significance...of representing a worthy heritage. Local becomes good. One makes recommendations to Blighty for CD collecting cousin, Blighty looks at you funny as CD collecting cousin thinks you owe him ten quid in real money.


But as an exception to prove the rule, and for the record, Spanish flamenco dancing is good, Spanish flamenco singing is ... I am sorry... not. It is still cat-a-wailing... there are limits to my entry into foreign society and for the sake of being able to hear other music and in particular the Beatles when I am 64.... sorry.... singing requires a melody and what I call music requires melody, flamenco singing requires a tom-cat being indelicately squeezed .


Whlist for the record, we Brits now how to rally a crowd, uplift the gallant masses, motivate the executive team "And we were singing.....We shall not be moved.....And we were singing.....Here we go...Here we go...Here weeee.....need a dictionary"

Luck of the Yer-wish

Yer lucky


For all my insistence on ex-pat times are tough, my older wiser colleagues who stepped on and off the boat before me, remind me; of times of no satellite TV to homeland channels, no instant dial telephone to home, no supermarket stacking Heinz baked beanz as a 'norm', no Cornflakes leading the Hypermarket Sales drive.


They stared potholes in a road, the locals called a road and the Europeans called a dirt track. Expats that were not tourists, were not travellers, were adventurers. N ow once in a while as adventurers they stared them in the face of adversity; from a car jacked up with a spare tyre looking bare of tread.
They sought guidance on a monthly basis at a designated time to a European home office after they made the round trip to a phone, to phone home with an echoing hum and a raising of a vooce in a futile attempt to bridge an ocean. A phoning home to confirm funeral arrangenments could be postponed for another month, whilst the home office made their round trip to the suburbs and felt a hob well done was being done by somebody else... and the credit was made in the weekly ceo report and the point to all this ......therefore daily the adventurers felt that the sharp end was pointy.


And so my winges are by comparison those of a spoilt child, but human nature will help me overcome my guilt. I want my Cadbury's chocolate cake and I want to eat it.

What the...whether

They stare in the equivalent of "What the..." seeing a strange sights in their local sites, perhaps it may seem an alien has been seen - their first contact or perhaps they know I am an illegal resident- another kind of alien. For here the alien is me, damned by the normal behaviour in Blighty. Here it is called in question .....here.... They say that it is not a poor climate, but a poor choice of clothes and here an ex-pat is like the weather. It is not being an ex-pat but a poor choice of clothing. Whether to wear Blighty trackies or the local clothes. Clothes of an older Blighty generation.

Here I might be "in", if only I had brought over and somehow retained that 70's wardrobe of corduroy. Then I could have camouflaged myself like a zebra on a zebra crossing.


Occasionally I wear a football shirt, not that I play beyond a father-son kickabout; and so by this choice of fashion, I am not like the other dads, no .....not ever .....wearing footie shirts was UK-stylie. Here it is cardie or light pullover, in smart shirt casual. Society demanding I am old before my time.

I am a middle aged Rebel with a cause to revel in growing old with dignity of a bald head hidden under a Baseball cap. Foreigners are from Mars and Locals are from me'n'us.

Let's not do the Time Warp

A concert in a foreign land, a jumble sale of 60's, 70's, 80's songs of the evil english-speaking empire sung as a second tongue by what used to be called in English a troupe, but is probably best called here a Peace Corp in case I am in for some dirty looks of transaltions gone wild. The local amateur dramatics doing rather well. And all is well with the odd wrong note, the odd mistimed turn, all forgiven by the well meaning audience paying a pittance to be entertained. But a crime is committed against the cultural heritage of the Western World. Audience participation is called for...the audience stands up, the massed ranks of locals in the majority and isolated ranks of the foreigners in the minority. The audience participation is in the 'Time Warp' where choreography has been localised to a static arm-waving throwback to a pre-Morris Dancing square dance for a bloke with a limp. It is an outrage. It is not Brit dancing Time Warp, fine tuned by yours truly in many a late 80's - early 90's disco. So we Brits, we two represent Western World . The Western World standing out like a sore thumb in the outstanding standout competition.

Stiff upper lip, and without an alcohol drop entering my body. Booty is flipped, with a little more weight than in my svelte 80's hey day, but flipped it is, without recourse to a criminal investigation by tax authorities. It was a case of " This is how it should be done." "Look and Learn compadre."

Children are proud of the Brit parents dancing despite the mocking looks of the locals as our dance steps involve actual body movement. Our children admire their true Brit spirited parents as they blush in quiet admiration, as look away in quiet admiration, as they find a dark corner and ask for DNA tests to prove that they might just be not belonging.





Rock on.

The real ex-pat

Socialistic principles aside. Ex-patness brought on a case of Domestication.

Others were doing it, it wasn't..sniff...as if I ...sniff... I was hurting anyone.

It was a big house, the kids were young, the wife was under a knife to remove a vital organ or something close to a vital organ, we had no mother-in-law. We had little friends we could trust with our darlings or wanted to be trusted by our darlings.

We had ex-pat cash , we had a 'domestic'.

And in one fell swoop I was master of servents. I was joining the ranks of the nearly rich and famous who had food made by a non-family member and was not covered in plastic some five micrwaved minutes earlier. Shirts crisply ironed and ready on demand. A family picture not hiding under a residue of dust and MY God! have I aged. I had been turned. My father probably turned as well....in his grave. Voting Tory was a small step away.

And the good news... my language skills improved after several embarrassing incidents involving socks and knickers which apparently sound similar in her tongue or at least the way I asked for socks.

And the good news we had a friend

And the Good News we helped her to better things...a career outside making very nice salad for me and the family.

I miss the salad mind.

Yes Officer,

Yes officer I was a foreigner driving in a hire car in your country. I know this is a wrong, I am aware this deed is worthy of a hefty penalty. I am sorry. If you give me a minute to consult my get-by guide I will beg for mercy in your own tongue or at least the strangulated cat version of your language.

One minute I am an executive Businessman and the next I am a Lottery ticket bonus point facilitator to a cop - police in some countries are considered, let us say open to negotiation, such that being over the speeding limit could be a matter of eye squinting. Eye squinting may also push being under the speed limit to over the speed limit in a blink of an eye and possibly back again.

One friend put it like this that they earn so little that some eye squinting puts a chicken dinner on the family table and a jolly foreigner was a double bonus jackpot of calorie boost and invite the cousins for the Day of Rest - you no speak - you big trouble- walllet- thankyou - no you say thankyou.


And my get-by guide book is sadly capable of telling the officer I have diarhoea.

Technology

Just like Mama's Blackberry Pie has evolved into just like Daddy's Blackberry. Presentations once upon an 80's executive career busting-or-making management training exercise was based on cutting edge acetates Now as years pass into decades, as governments fall like a Berlin Wall so the plastic sheets and essential need of Overhaed Project is forever marked Old Tech', dodgy light bulbs, all have been dumped in favour of 'Powerpoint'. We are slaves to Microsoft powerpointedness, as vital to a meeting as a chair, a table, a thermos of coffee, it appears in the ether, on the flat screen, on the screen as like a mini film , images slowly merge into the next, under animation Walt Disney would have been jealous of and no doubt saved a few bob on crayons and arithritic cartoonists elbows. Elbow grease industrial injury claims would have been halved in favour of mouse index finger. Hyperlinks takes us to videos of a Site Visit with shakey cam giving a real deal. Oscar nominations for Animation in a Business context await.

Applause is anticipated, only to be spoiled as meeting particpant surreptiosly answer the bleeping mobile soundtrack, read Blackberry messages and respond with thumbs quivering, glistening in the Powerpoint glow. So much for technology

Its like catching a bus

An airbus that is.

Once upon a time entering an airport was an adventure akin to walking on the Moon for an Astronaut - a once a decade, perhaps belatedly a once a year adventure to the brave new world . Preparation was key, requiring reading beforehand, a study of country perils, an invesigation of things that could go wrong, pills for every diease outside the common cold, learning new useful phrases such as ~please, thankyou and toilet!~ in a different tongue, a checklist of emergency telephone numbers, seeking advice on ticket validity, admiring the brand new look passport. And now here I am, things are put into a category marked things to do on the night, before except unknown visa applications which can take a while longer and require an extra passport.

Clothes are worn that have been bought and designed for the purpose with specialised pockets of certain size to carry things ready for the trip - I have acquired a business look stereotype of thousands of others similar to others, airport sitting, waiting, timing a rush to to the gate to a synchronisation worthy of an Olymoic swimming competition, anticipating connection delays, disappointed in a fellow passenger is only now un lacing a shoe, failing to remove the clunky jewelry, unready with a passport at the various stations. I am an expert in airport decorum, I am in time with proytocols of different airports, it is a necessity, it is a sign that I could be doing something better, like reading books with the kids, being there to explain the quadratic equation, to be a shoulder to cry on, but I am here earning the euro dollar. A litttle confession of exaggeration, I may need a little time to remember how to do quadratic equations.

This time I have an acrosss Atlantic trip, an experience to be had in turning from one bed sore to another.; breathiong a bloated mass of gaseuous fumes intent on burping their way from Business Class. Yes Business Class is a real luxury, one appreciates at the Company expense, it eases the bed sore rotation rate a little with the anaesthetic effect of the occasional wine or spirit a welcome relief.

And this away trip to the Hotel complex has the added adventure of investigating pot-holed roads, dusty roads, did I say roads I must like exaggerating, tracks that incredibly can apparently traversed at speed, mini-bus overtaking manouvres for the brave driver and the cowardly passenger, unable to talk by a mixture of fear of engine noise and inability to shout the native tonge. A sign language saying ~please slow down ~ translates badly as we quicken to the death defying curves ~ I hope death defying ~ where is a priest when you are ripe to convert. Grinning and bearing it here adds mental to physical - bed sores to brusises. And as you like it- this Site Visit is like two sides of a coin ~ heads winning, tails losing ~ either the profit potential making, Company vested business development opportunity or a God forsaken, malaria infested swamp in the land that Man forgot.

Finally we face the wildlife and the sun. The whitey Europeans not so white after minutes in this sweat inducing ambience. Whitey rapidly becomes red-dy, rapidly becoming dotty. A veritable exercise in join the dots road map of vital and non vital organs drawn by the local Mozzies, and did I say Malaria infested. Mozzies dining on international fayre today - Spotted Dick.

Johnny Foreigner

When the day is young... the alarm clock rings ... the cereals are chunked... the suitcase is locked... the tie is adjusted... the taxi awaits... the check-in queues.. the X-ray beams... the shoe is swiped ... the bum is seated in comfort by a frequent flyer card... so the rest nation awakes as I fly to some land to visit an hotel roo... a meeting room ... a dining room ... a bedroom. A Father by vocal recognition again.

A passenger not seeing the beauty, missing the childhood, expanding the waist line and one reads a Bill Bryson book about the Universe and everythong, that tells me in a comic readable fashion we are all atoms and I will probably end up divided amongst a tree, a rabbit, a sea anenome, water in a cup perhaps and my soul who sold a thousand widgits at the world best price is remembered only by a long forgotten E-mail.

Time to read a Bill Bryson travelogue methinks, for Johnny Foreigners are not welcome in all bars.

Box City

The Pryce family have moved too often so there is an abundance of virtual friends, friends that exist by E-mail and Facebook, a children's education divided into Americanised international schools, British international schools and now bullet-is-bitten the native schools. Chasing the Euro-dollar may not have been for the best and has another price. But then unemployment in Blighty was not exactly an option to the MP3, iPod, GPS generation.


So I have shared the upwardly mobile tramp experience having lived with cardboard boxes several times where what-should-be treasured possessions remained resolutely hidden in a box marked "stuff" that the movers felt was equivalent to odd socks. Family heirlooms for years carefully tended by a Grandmother now slightly, badly re-structured by a grandson wondering the sticky tape was. A grandmother turns in her grave a grandson turns up a box.


Months later residence papers hunted down in a bureaucratic jungle of far flung offices in an unknown city armed with a local map and a Let's Get by in getting by book, offices with lifts , some without lifts, with starirs lots of stairs' helpful and unhelpful assistance and thank God we are Brits because the Latinos aren't allowed to jump the queue.

Finally in one country after several dollars we were given our official residence status on a recycled A4 page stamped, signed and bearing a striking simarity to my son's first fading school report paper except his stamp was a smiley face. And by coincidence old school papers of the kids kept for posterity and now also lost in the boxes and should have been chucked, because I am a miser I think they cost about 100$ to move around this continent. But wifey would disagree. On such differences of opinions arguments are formed to seed a divorce. Trigger tempers amongst the cardboard jungle.

Then a year or so later a document is needed to prove one is a paid-up veritable member of a foreign society, a paper for a car, a paper for a bank, a paper put safely somewhere in a safe place in box city. I blame the wifey, she blames the hubby, we should buy a dog and save a marriage. I may be some time.

R'n'R

Visiting Blighty - the annual pilgrimage, the second holiday, the missed year, the duty, the mother guilt-not-free year, the obligation, the regret that you missed that year, the rugby match watched and enjoyed if only this could be every ....., the road miles, the traffic, the left side, the traffic jams not missed, the price of a modern executive rock'n'roll lifestyle jet flying seeing experiencing but also missing out. Maternal tears, if only you lived..... closer but this is living, this is my living chasing the Euro Dollar. Some r'n'r brings home the homesickness, cure of being there. The television news is in English, the road network is adjusted to with hopefully no accident within 30 m of the car hire depot and at a damnable car hire expense with or without the extras. Look at the sky, realising that the sky is grey. Look at the beer, the beer is Guiness, the beer is black and expensive. Hear the accent. Recognise the brand names of youth with due respects to Woolworths. Gossip heard could be misheard for it is not understood , times have changed. Former friends see a different man in front of them, their perception changed. Time for a beer, to prove I am still more-or-less the man I was, but with a few stories to tell.

The excitement of being different cowed that part of you misses not being the same.

Wah heh

Wah heh may be a song chorus somewhere, it also is the involuntarily reaction to a major life threatening manouvre by a driver that does not speak your language, but understood to be a good driver by any local higway code test and worthy of taking a jolly foreigner around his city. And by decree nof the government it must involve hair raising events which is especially challenging if the passenger is bald.

Arriving early for a meeting takes second place to seeing the children once more in a life.

Eventually after arrival and survival, he smiles as if he has proven yet again that he is good, very good. Extreme taxi riding is the middle age equivalent of bungee jumping.

Teeth & Gums

Dental Health insurance ...yer pays yer money, the physical pain goes and yer ....eeergh still hurts from the financial pain, the lack of cash in the current account because of the deductions, excess, cost sharing, caps and what have you's.



First things first, Death by international dental hygiene should be a crimal offence in international criminal law. First degree near murder should be when placed in the hands of a foreign dental hygienist unable to say 'please', because she thinks you are stupid in her a language and unworthy of a smile, but plenty deserving a bit of GBH, delivered legally under the guise of nurse-patient privilege. She ungently grabs a mouth and squeezes it open as if popping a zit. The doctor urgently exercises his doctor-victim privilege with a needle delivery rate, one thinks if he has a stapler, it probably hasn't got staples.

A person with a drill who does not speak your language is a frightening thought. One's logic goes out of the window one wishes to forewan him that one's teeth are not meant to be pout in a cup overnight one cannot speak perhaps through fear perhaps because there is a big bloody drill in one's mouth and a collection of whirring dripping, flushing apparatus or is it apparati. To talk is a bit of a lottery So during the second stage of near death experiences ability to talk is secondary to waving your arms about.

So as near bloody certain death looms when you have the recall - the come back next week, with a whole week to think about the full-on horror of gum bleeding atrocities. Waving your arms may not be enough, its time for a grown man to cry over a cheek that feels as if it was transplanted from a 1950's B movie swamp monster. Where is the mirror.

I have experienced twice root canal treatment on foreign lands, I survived, there should be medals.


On the second occasion the dentist described the previous expensive aesthetically pleasing plastic filling treatment that the dentist of the first occasion had put in as a poison. YES POISON. Yes my incredibly overpaid first dentist had taken my near death theories a tad closer to reality than I would have wished. Why that made me happy.

Let me remind myself, I paid aswell. Where is the NHS when you want it.

I am in pain as I open wide -whammy one- aaaaaaand second things second, I have to pay - whammy two - dental treatment is not a happy ex-pat experience.

The South American locals have perfect teeth, gleaming white enamel of a life without boiled sweets, Cadbury's chocolate; a life without British 70's new wave dental treatment based on finding a hole, perhaps more a speck, making a speck bigger, a hole in fact, and filling it with metal. Its a wonder dentists in South America make money. Then there's the foreigners. A story............
In some posh restaurant in the better part of a South American city I crunch a rare medium steak, but....pero....why...por que....steaks are not crunched, from somewhere there is a metallic action-reaction bite, so unless the meat here is flavoured by pellets, I have to face death. I am not happy, a pleasant working day will now involve organising a visit to the local dentist. I do not know if local is local or satellite-to-local or indeed not-local.
Should I ignore it, the last time on foreign soil, I chose to ignore a failing tooth, which some weeks later resulted in excruciating pain and mega bucks root canal treatment.

One hour later with the kind help of a local secretary, one taxi ride with the paid help of a driver of slow speed and heavy traffic, moving up this street, down another, left at the traffic light and I am here less a large sum of local currency, that probably will feed his family for a week. In return I gain some shrapnel celebrating some unknown hero. Behind a hidden stairwell I find a hint of a door that may hide a dentist. I am speaking into a remote door intercom that opens the heavy duty barred doors, here a chance to practice the local lingo. Por favor ....Please....speak English. Barred door swings a little open on a lock clunk-click lock, sounding just like the local steak, nervously I push open the bars that have seen 'action'. . Not a good ambience.

The dentist is a first generation Latino with a German give-away name doctor - a local dentist speaks English, wah hey, the tools of his trade speak of a distant age, I am time warped into the 50's, I am grateful it looks a little 1950's and not 1850;s, the dental machines are coloured cream, I am back in in schoolboy memories. I have still a certain angst. Thankfully the tooth looks good, but an X-ray to double-check maybe, he needs the money, I wasted his time, he wants the dollar. I am charitable, I agree. I am wrong. I am a fool, I am taken to the fool's room, I am taken to the radioactive 'enter at your peril' room, the torture chamber epicentre, the bunker, a leaded apron is anchored on me, I am rooted to a position by post-WWII former-high tech stuff. The machine is of a size, of a metallic armed disposition to star in a 1950's B movie about aliens. I am rigidly stuck in an iron grip, they re-assuringly run out. and zapped as a Geiger Counter goes full-scale deflection. And my tooth is still good, but let's wait 10 years if my body has survived the dosing of the radiological effects.

And I paid half of it, and of that half that was within my financial cap limit. A grown man cries again. Twice in a life outside funerals.

So its back the metal flavoured meat. Mum would be proud of my iron diet. Not to mention a new superhero power of finding magnetic north without a compass.

Spreading the Word

Some musical pop combo band somewhere said lost in a supermarket. I am lost in the first day of school standing as the leper family at the local school. International schooling has been forsaken for cultural integration ~the official reason~ and monetary necessity ~the unofficial reason. I stand with a frightened child awaiting the isolation of a foreign language amongst her peers. This is not the best ex-pat moment of this global citizen shenanigans.

In six-nine months comes the better ex-pat moment as a child can embarrass me as I ask for help in explaining why some electrical kit does not work to the only non second langauge english speaker in third major city by population of the country's major shopping chain. Why me?

And one fall out, one result, as one language becomes second nature aswell as second tongue, the first tongue falls into speaking too properly, too logically, a return to toddler english logic; as in 'he spreaded'. And we dutiful parents are left correcting the irregular. Perhaps my child is right, or rite; as in not wrong or not rong, as the case or kase may be.

A shovel is a spade

Let us call a shovel a shovel so that the do-gooders and do-betters do not misinterpret my deck of cards. Cultural awareness can be a challenge. Sometimes in the wrong way.



Once in order to avoid embarassing Business cultural exchanges that may jeopardise a deal over a misplaced gesture, we undertook cultural training at the considerable expense of the Company. Negotiation skills, cultural awareness and communication skills, whatever.

As an aside if I recall once being taught negotiating skills by this large Brummie lady who had negotiated a big food deal in the West Midlands that may have been...ooo...worth hundreds of pence. Now her weekly shopping she was done, which probably included a large portion of Mars bars and your bum does look big in anything really, now she was training us, as an expert in negoptiation. Her CV writing skills were probably very good. Sometimes big companies spend money on the big idea, the big tick in the box and the net result is not quite value for money. But armed with course notes, knowledgeable on how to survive a plane crash in a desert with a varied team I was ready to venture into the real world.



Then fully trained in cultural awareness so that I could recognise a 'I do not understand' as a 'No'. We went into battle, a negotiation with the Chinese and a thousand of my bows of introduction later; my colleague across the table smiled a thousand times at my courtesy that he had not seen outside his London based posting for probably a few years. I was a looking a little niaive, methinks. I was a novice in international negotiation, and he was an old hand used to the non-culturally aware Brits.



On another tangent in the Middle East, at some ex-pat social club this nice Brit ex-pat fella who had been demonstrably respectul to our hosts, now here turned on the fellow ex-pat of sorts at our sides. An ex-pat Indian immigrant that served our food, after serving us drinks and probably later cleaned the floors of our drunken mishaps. My Brit colleague raised his voice to exort his colonial best digust at his speed of foot in serving us, or not yet serving us. He turned to berate this man in terms to leave the social status understood by all there. We sat in our confortable chairs, I lowering my eyes and my colleague tossing his eyes upwards, whilst our fellow less fortunate went to toss the salad hopefully without the spittle special sauce we may have deserved.



PS- A tip for increasing the odds of surviving a plane crash in a desert is to fly with a reputable Company.

New School Year Calender Begins Again

Wah-hey - another school year starts, another new school, another set of new friends for the kids to ingratiate themselves, I hope, we hope, they hope; with whilst trying to improve an education that that leads them to university, I hope, we hope, they do not care. My kids stand there, my kids' eyes wide open, a tad of nervousness, almost physical as I provide a whimsical commentary that things will be alright, my kids looking around, my kids being being looked at, this is a first day zoo. They will survive, they always do, but will they be hurt. Scarred after being scared by an ex-pat adventure, or will they be better persons, extroverts, kind souls, culturally aware - a socio non-experiment that my kids have no choice but to be part of and we buy another needlessly unwarranted cuddly toy, to add to the collection, to make up for the lack of stabilty, to prove we are really good parents.

See you in the Spring.

Good, Bad and Ugly Times

Ex-pat of now some years and some moves, but the world is a big place and my ex-pat view is coloured by my limited experiences. I have nor ex-patted in an english speaking country, but certainly mostly in English speaking offices, except one where even asking for a coffee was a challenge. It was a pretty thirstly secondment and de-toxing non caffeine cold turkey in a foreign office is not a way to endear oneself to the natives.


And I confess its easy for me to pick on the woes especially as they tend to illicit more humour, but there are and were good times, drinking Belgian beer with a fellow ex-pat in a non Belgian plaza at ridiculous hours of a morning, ridiculous for the UK, but there we were part of the native throng except for louder-than-yours shirts.

In the UK, other parents cricitised our parent-children behaviour because our 'toddlers+' were unaccountably awake beyond 8 o'clock in the evening and not even in bed. This was tant amount to admitting we belonged to the local evangelical chapter of 'Pagan Gods -R-Us'. One could see other parents downgrading us to trailer trash with a ear-to-ear wrinkling of the forehead. A forehead where potatoes could have successfully be grown in the furrow.
One month later in ex-pat land, we were now 'criticised' for cruelly suggesting our children were in bed by 10'clock which was behaviour akin to well British , such is cultural differences.

'Criticised' is an exaggeration or an interptation, as it was more a reading of body language, and regressive memories that some years later understood the nods, winks and chuckles of the natives to our early days as Brits abroad

I like to think step by step one learns, adopts and perhaps improves with cultural knowledge and also with age, a better man than that which I once was. I hope. Hard times becoming learning times becoming good times, but always uncertain times and so exciting times.

Pryce Thoery of Relativity

Without resorting to baffling the reader by using a fancy equation that E=m to the c dee sqaured off at the corner of 10 and 11 or something like that, because I am not that intelligent. Ex-pat life has a time relativity of its own. Arriving at a new place, a new environment, a new world, where the words on signs may use the same letters but do not spell the same words. Toilets should by Global Law be identified only in genetically correct symbols. Eating food is a matter of guesswork and mild food poisoning, shopping in a supermarket is a lottery until you find the ketchup bottles and Cornflakes section. Finding a good school for the kids is an endurance test of remote emotion and cash-flow problems. Time slows-mo, but you still can't believe its Friday. Anniversaries are counted in weeks , graduating to months, six months of survival earns a meal. An end of a school term is a Fast Food bonanza in food-if-you-like-and-it-looks-like and fingerpointing. A year is a jubilee deserving a banquet. Two years, three years is tour of duty. A Vet.

Not a holiday maker tourist and not an adventurer, but a traveller by a diff'rent road that is tied to an economic truism. Who pays the bills, sometimes facilitates the residency papers. And for the most part global citizenship is absorbed, or at least continental citizenship.

An Ex-pat life can have a certain excitement, a cowboy of latter-dat sorts permitted to wear loud shirts in public causing mirth to the locals without threatening your place in society; because you're just passing through and laughing at me is ephemeral and hides a jealousy of my freedom. But ne'er forget that cowboys sometimes walk on cowpats.

Shrapnel

I am aware the Euro is hated with a lust by some of my fellow citizens. But standing in a queue awaiting to buy the local-as-in-foreign equivalent of a Mars Bar and wondering what is the price in Liramarkpesos not easy to convert to sterling pounds and pence. Finally forced to stand before a lady demanding money with grimaces. Finally standing in front of a sudden queue of locals wanting nothing more than to reach the grimacing lady. Mental arithmetic sums are done, tried to be done, to convert a Mars Bar into sterling ..into Liramarkpeso equivalent that included dividing by 10,000, rounding to second decimal places, multplying by 3.5, or was it 3.7 and adding the first number I thought of. Eventually one parts with the largest note as signified by the number of '000's and the note is handed over with trepidation. Does humilation await.

Grimace turns to despair, words are spoken in tongues, is this an Evangelical Church and a note is waved, the Guidebook has told you to say 'I no speak', she hands over a ridiculous amount of notes and metal as a waiting queue bays for your blood, and still she calls for a treasury transfer with sovereign guaranteefor the cash to fund for my confectionary purpose.

And next day this is repeated as shrapnel is accumulated.

And to add injury to insult, the Mars bar doesn't quite taste like the Blighty Mars Bar.

Culture Shock

On my first posting abroad which was not in the deepest developing nation, but a European City. My colleagues, the veteran of ex-pat doom merchants forewarned me of a dreaded pariah of all things Ex-pat - "Culture Shock". Apparently, and it was told to me, and I cannot underestimate the seriousness of the message, it was said in whispered earnest as if I was being diagnosed by a doctor of some bearing studying a medical magnetic radiation scan that may show a shadow or two...be prepared. This drama ~the Culture Shock ~would be faced at some point, at some moment unkown to me, in the future. Be scared.
He forecasted that often it ~ the culture shock~occurred after the excitement, headless chicken runaround of early months as one collapsed at one point happy to have survived the settling in and then as one sat in congratulatory Zietgeist, as one sat on the sofa, repeating the moment of successful settling-in, the effort made, the heart attack risked, the new home here..... starting slowly dreaming of, perhaps, a Rich Tea bicky dipped in a PG Tips tea, the old home, whereupon you would become a blithering blubbering idiot because the local muck was no good and, by the way, coincidentally at 30Degrees C local temperature not really wanted. But that was not the point, it was a rich Tea Bicky that was not sold in this God forsaken hell hole of greasy green things and stuff. It was stated, this phenomemon ~the Culture Shock~, in hushed reverential tones, as if a not talked about disease, that he was doing me a favour, breaking a vow of revereance, by even mentioning it in whispered tones. Keep the defribillator, my friend, handy in case the "Shock" gets you or your family. Be prepared. Be scared.


I admit, I indeed suffered from headless chicken-ness and stress that should have brought on ulcers, if I had time to organise my yearly medical and diagnose an ulcer. But priorities went to residency papers, translations, school registrations, understanding the house wiring, electrocuting a finger or two, finding the local doctor as a daughter coughed a tad too heavily, a doctor reached by phone, by car, by illegal parking, by hand gestures to a receptionst by a tingling finger; and all sorts of other melodramas that would not have happened in Blighty. But I accepted I was in a different culture, perhaps cursed it sometimes, looked at my brand new pay -check, saw the kids loving it, felt a certain sense-of-worth, meeting-the-challenge and bought a satellite TV dish at exorbitant prices.


A kind of reverse Culture shock of sorts was that the brand new pay check whilst making economy savings....mmmmmm...come again? was I not earning more?...... this savings concept was a kind of culture shock that the salary I had been promised and lovingly adored, became eaten as Health Insurance, school fees, special bag for school to match the other kids, residence fees, big birthday presents for the the rich kids at the new school, car registrations, house finder's fee, house deposit fee; all ate into my pocket whilst I started to appreciate a bread and dripping diet again. Woe is me.

And by modern science of webcams, satellite, to some extent I needed to start getting in touch with local culture a tad more ~ reverse Culture Shock~.


But to admit another type of culture shock, in another culture of a later move that did shock, but it was I think forgivable. On one ex-pat posting to a non European city , I took the doom merchant of the incumbent ex-pat message a tad more seriously, because it involved bullets and the art of aviding bullets. A lesson in the skills of trying not to be shot and integrating into the background, not not too stand out as Johnny Foreigner. Look like the locals...hmmm...pinky white skin....immediately my shirt was unbuttoned, sun was generously allowed to burn my skin to fast track my tanning credits. I ended up a tomato-head with an arrow on my chest pointing to where I was about to wet himself at the nearest hint of a gun waving boy from the "Barrios" with a bullet with my name on it. This was not so much culture shock as scaredy pants, man happily prepared to buy a nappy, but did not want to buy a body bag. I survived without any real nappy soiling incident, did he exaggerate, I think not.
My doom merchant ultimately was kidnapped at gunpoint divested of all but his pants for not following his own rules. He lived and the adult nappy buying statistics has risen exponentially. Mafia links top Adult diper manufacturers should be investigated, methinks.

Autumn leaves to fall

A famous song once said 'I am a passenger' and in life, sometimes more often than I probably care to admit; I have allowed the water flow to take me to new pastures part of the flotsam of the undertow. And when I say me, I should say us, chasing the euro dollar with a family in tow. Sometimes the relocations, career moves were unavoidable in a cycle of promised career opportunity, a tour of duty completed and freelance contract ended.

Once I was made redundant and I was set adrift with visions of bread and dripping for dinners if I did not get ...... . Whilst in the old home office of my old Company in Blighty, where I could have stayed, my seat by the window for years of service, my associated professional status confirmed with hierarchy trinkets of my personal printer, a wood trimmed desk, a first copy in the 'cc list', there my seat had passed on to 'his seat'- the cuckoo home office nest had new ownership. I was no longer an employee. And in part of life's rich tapestry, on this occasion, all things being equal and all that, the economic bottom line was unequal and my foreign-based promised career accelerator position was no longer tenable. Not so funny with a family to feed, I felt like a weed in the garden competing for a drop of water, but afraid the gardener liked the flowers more, hell he liked the grass more than my redundant weed. An ego bruised, made humble.

Down-sizing, re-sizing, called to the cull. A plan of life gone lost, and who the fff.. put f in life. A mid-life in review to which I have bobbed, floated in the maelstrom of the flow. A career plan now in disrepute as a white lie going grey, like the hair that has survived the years.

Let me roll over in my grave, I am not only a passenger ~ I am a mushroom.

~ but I am here, I am a survivor.

T'office

Without wishing to wear my heart on a sleeve, besides the shirt might need washing, I might die. Or pretend to have a stutter and call my office “t’office” because I was once working class. But it was not so many years ago that travelling by aeroplane was what others did, at best I travelled by a bus and was thankful for it. But eventually with a degree under my arm, a chip on my shoulder, one day in young executive land the Company paid for me to explore some industrial facility and, bless them, to return me on the same day and double bless them again I travelled by air. My family in their valley home expressed surprise I had achieved this feat of travel without a sledge, huskies and a first aid pack; yet I was telephoning home without a nose bleed, after travelling further than they had ever holidayed. I was living in a different world to my kin, I had become irrefutably a different generation.

Working class boy makes good or it may seem so, but here is the crux, the cross to bear, the albatross of history, the burden of social placing. To embellish, to paint a picture,.......a story.


The multi-course Business evening meals that I found more challenging than psychrometric multiple choice, more demanding than multi tasking. As a young graduate, I was losing battles to be served last during a team building seminar evening dinner. Why? ....Because.... I could follow the example of some-middle-class-body in the art of choosing which fork to use, or which sperm-of-satan spoon-fork I should pick-up, let alone use it to pivck-up some fruit hiding under a fashioanble looking leaf. Where was I to place a napkin, and bless my cotton socks I resisted raising it to my nose, just. What cellar was for salt and how come it was on the table and not the basement. I was a working class boy whose academic achievements may be rooted in straight B+’s, but I was a working class boy making bad. As noses were turned up, as my nose managed only sniffles, where was that napkin.
I was new in this strata of society, I was second place, destined to be brought on board when the job was behind, when brains counted for more than etiquette. Like a mad dog under cover of darkness released to bark at the moon and the poachers.


A true story as I confess to a tad of exaggeration:
I was asked once to pass the 'cruet stand', I was dumbfounded, had we moved onto the after dinner Trvial Pursuits entertainment and I hadn't finished my soup, come to think of it no-one else had. I was rescued by a kindly fellow who hid my fallibility by quickly pointing to the offending table tools of a evening meal. Phew for WC-boy.

As an analogy of sorts:
Ladies call for the breaking of the glass ceiling barring them from the top jobs and there is a truth in it - a transparent bias; but where as beyond this glass ceiling there are some females admitted-by-token. Here the glass ceiling is seen in its transparent notoriety, in its Board room male only 'toilet-ness'. It is visible enough, it is talked about on the satellite news channels to spend whole minutes between adverts and football to launch, the ladies can launch a critical campaign for justice. But here I am in my working class bubble, here I am where academia, work ethic compensates little against the glass ceiling . This transparent ceiling is not transparent to the social eye. No entry here not even by token.


Am I still uncool spelt uncouth in my no-WC-man's land. I hope I exaggerate for effect.

Me speak English

Langauge as a means to communicate is a good thing, I have theoretically have an advantage. English. The language of commerce even if it favours sidewalks, realizations and honors, rather than pavements, realisations and honours. However language, the English language which offers a multitiude of various nuances of emotion, colour and general dialect, can be a barrier. Business wants and expects an English of plain, simples, get-the-point-across understanding. So words are resticted to a base of recognisable words taught in the national standard text book and chat is slowed to resemble a 'slowmo' version of reality. Towcester is pronounced tow-cest-er in this not-quite-parallel universe.

I once, fool that I am, corected some foreign colleagues intent on pronouncing 'mayor' as 'major', it was pronounced 'mayre', I pontificated from my pulpit of leather-look chair, as their eyes rolled upwards to my holy verbal eliteness. It was instead digging a verbalistic hole. I was right in all tests that academia may wish to embarass me with, but I was so wrong in all other fields of social acceptance.

In my early days I flowered languages with analogies that had people scratching heads, why was Johnny Foreigner talking about dinner at 10 o'clock, as why else would I be talking of taking a "pinch of the salt". I D'oh.

Business English is not the Queen's English, it is a second language, it is not a mother tongue.

Foreign palate

Nothing against two sausage, egg and chips, in fact I am big-time for it, and look forward to it on my annual trip to the Green and Pleasant Land, or the grey and pleasant land as in it sometimes turns out to be. But a good thing with travel is foreign palate.

Once upon an ex-pat time, I trod carefully with the natives when asked to dine on the cross cultural "away" leg. Especially when invited to eat some thing that had suckers, yes bloody suckers, it should have been in a B movie and not hiding the pattern on my plate. My new found colleagues were keen to see me squrm as bulbous squibbly legs were gently forked up and put on plate for palate dispatch. It was as if this was the initiation ceremont, a sign of courage, whilst they bated breath for my imminent vomiting with hankies ready to either help their victim after his initiation, or to muffle a Latino laugh. But he who laughs first, laughs loudest ...or something like.... my taste buds registered the first squidge of biting and mouth readied itself to Mmm...murgh and satisfy their poised hankies or the nearest receptacle. Swiftly I mumbled, I mouthed 'Mmmm....mmmm, can I have some more?'. They were not pleased.





This is not always the case, some Asian visitors made up for my arrogance in a meeting by helping me diet in a sushi reastaurant that had my empty stomach rumbling whilst my mouth fumbled and feigned 'I am full to capacity, 100%, thanks but no thanks', tapping a stomach to drown the sound of low seismic activity, 'I need to watch the waist-line '. When it was more a case of I need to watch the meat in case it moves again, if I say raw, defribilators were at the ready in case it still pulsed and I was about to shout "Stand Clear". I would like to have shout "Stand Clear" anyway.



So to end this diatribe, on visiting the world's cities, to touch the local culture at its calorie level best and digest the local cuisine, to wander amongst the local restauarants, to delight the tonsils with an 'Ahh' moment, to allow the local secret chicken sauce delicacy to excite the tongue, and then to think may be not, as there seems a certain tang of familiarity, but that's KFCs for you....and they call it globalisation.

Been there.....

Times have taken to me places that as a boy I would only know from an obscure BBC2 documentary, and lo and behold - I am in those cities, I am in some remote town with some claim to fame. And yet the truth should be told, to relate an anecdote - a dinner party in foreign climes of new would-be friends, foreigners thrown together, pleasantries exchanged in english and pidgin english. handshakes amongst the apperitifs, kisses in the air with mostly strangers and the drinking water had bubbles. The conversation turns to swapping passport stamps, a lady enthused of a city where I had 'been there, done that' on a fleeting business journey, how she had heard how beautiful this European capital was, the rivers, the museums, the avenues, the...how she had wished whatever and she asked my opinion. I noted the hotel room had nice wallpaper. I was a little rude, methinks in hindsight, and lost another would-be friend; but yet that was the truth of jet set life, it sometimes was not so jet-set, been there and not done that. My jet set life was an A-X guide of hotel rooms, taxis and conference room facilities.



The Y-Z guide were for the 5 star hotels.

An Ex-pat is not funny

Banter is a skill sadly little practised by an ex-pat outside of an Irish pub. The subtlety of a joke told in foreign climes may well end in bored looks and creative excuses to visit a toilet or nibble a crouton. A joke based on 57 varieties of mental cleverness in the English language falls down when the non-native speaker thought you were talking about beans, or maybe ketchup; but what the flippin' 'eck had that to do with "knock -knock". I am being dumbed down in my mother tongue, whilst my inherent dumbness in the local lingo that struggles beyond 'hello',' how are you?' and 'good-bye'; by contrast and hysterical surround sound and associated pointing is apparently hilarious to the natives.

I need to look at my pay-slip again.

Bienvenido, Wilkommen and Welcome

I am a middle aged man still pretending that the socialist principles of the boy remains when you take the boy out of the ivory tower of youthful indulgence and transport him over many years, many events that eventually push for compromises once never contemplated ~ made to stay in one place for the sake of family, stability and sanity; doffing cap to bosses that make inappropriate proposals in a defiance of silence, ........pretending to like my wife's chips. Since the chips on my shoulder have been eaten and tasted a tad bitter ~ how can I complain. I am chasing the euro dollar to safeguard family, safeguard kids' youth that they can live in the ivory tower for a while and do better than me. But maybe there is still hope , maybe I ...

Welcome to the World of Bass, first name Bass, middle name Turd, last name Pryce. Intent on arguing the Pryce of Modern Age living by using a mobile phone. Intent on mixing his metaphors, the early Turd may catch the worm and can turn into manure, or something like that.