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.