Doe a female dear,
Ray a name I could call myself,
Moi a pretension I do call myself,
Fah a pre-fix before cough,
So or whatever its time to go
Lah di dah I do not know the words,
Tea a drink needing sugar and milk,
Door a thing that closes......
or words to that effect
Pryce Family Robinson and I'm mixing my metaphors as well mixing my vans with the trots and my family, to bring this full Monty to its end. It makes sense in a crossword puzzle.
I met her for an interview and it was a success for the career and we will see if the family sees it the same. Stabilty forsaken.
Life is not the Sound Of Music with an idealistic family escaping over the mountains whilst singing a melody of of tunes that I could only screech at and it is not for me. Booking a one way plane ticket is not an escape, its a reality of working for the Euro-Yankee-Ruble-Yen Dollar. It is for me. It is for us.
So.....just like the hidden track to be heard long after the last listed play, I give you "Tschus".
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Saturday, 17 July 2010
Auf wiedersehen, Goodbye, Tschues, Adios, Au voir
And so we face the final curtain- Blog retirement
May I thank all that may have read these posts and that may not be many. Thankyou Ms Cuthbert.
I hoped that each diatribe was laced with humour, but I am biased.
So hoping to survive the economic crisis and that double dips will still be a food thing my wife does for desert.
World of Bass says "Bye" .
May I thank all that may have read these posts and that may not be many. Thankyou Ms Cuthbert.
I hoped that each diatribe was laced with humour, but I am biased.
So hoping to survive the economic crisis and that double dips will still be a food thing my wife does for desert.
World of Bass says "Bye" .
Saturday, 3 July 2010
Best beef in the world
The Roast beef is apparently a French insult of sorts against the British; such as we, in reverse, associated the French with the Frogs legs. This is perhaps not nice, but not exactly going to get the gander up as much as, say, saying a garlic smelling, wine dribbling diatribe might. Like the Channel tunnel, its a two way thing.
Now I am in a new foreign land, I am placed in front of the local cuisine with a dread, a menu is like crossword puzzle of poisons, as assorted foreign words probably spell Gull's Eyeball and I don't know. However there is always something on a menu that spells saviour.
Today and as normal, Pryce is rescued by something the natives say is beef. I am not one to argue if curried inner ear is the other non-vegetarioan option. However this brings on board the second big "Ex-pat question", there is the beef question, the big beef question, the big beefy of beefiest beef question. We eat. My host with a knowing nod and an eyebrow raised, which means I am being required to confirm - "Is this the best beef in the world?". I am to confirm. I am being asked to lie.
Far from the maddening cow and contrary to modern thinking, I liked my Fray Bentos. Sharing this thinking with my hosts is a mistake. A big mistake.
My job description, my ex-patriate contract demands no bad mouthing of all things local and that unequivocally includes specifically agreeing with the representative of the host nation that their beef is best. I may actually think the beef is a variant of Mutton-Lamb-tofu-dressing or the most succulent piece of meat that ever touched the Pryce's tonsils. Fray Bentos is off the menu. I nod gravely , I nod with viguor, I affirm that yes...yes this is the best beef in the world, bar none.
Lying over beef is called diplomacy.
There is a one-way thing, I have learnt from getting it wrong many times and that is to get it right eventually.
I have travelled to some forgotten lands that turned out to be quite pleasant, when I thought I should have travelled with enough prescription drugs to keep a few pop stars happy. My blood/sugar levels may even be kept on an even keel, especially when the toilet is not a hole in the ground, hoorah.Now I am in a new foreign land, I am placed in front of the local cuisine with a dread, a menu is like crossword puzzle of poisons, as assorted foreign words probably spell Gull's Eyeball and I don't know. However there is always something on a menu that spells saviour.
Today and as normal, Pryce is rescued by something the natives say is beef. I am not one to argue if curried inner ear is the other non-vegetarioan option. However this brings on board the second big "Ex-pat question", there is the beef question, the big beef question, the big beefy of beefiest beef question. We eat. My host with a knowing nod and an eyebrow raised, which means I am being required to confirm - "Is this the best beef in the world?". I am to confirm. I am being asked to lie.
Far from the maddening cow and contrary to modern thinking, I liked my Fray Bentos. Sharing this thinking with my hosts is a mistake. A big mistake.
My job description, my ex-patriate contract demands no bad mouthing of all things local and that unequivocally includes specifically agreeing with the representative of the host nation that their beef is best. I may actually think the beef is a variant of Mutton-Lamb-tofu-dressing or the most succulent piece of meat that ever touched the Pryce's tonsils. Fray Bentos is off the menu. I nod gravely , I nod with viguor, I affirm that yes...yes this is the best beef in the world, bar none.
Lying over beef is called diplomacy.
Sunday, 20 June 2010
Marriages around the world
We are invited to travel miles to "once upon a time" friends in a far-away land to attend a wedding. We are the international guests that hardly know their fellow guests. Languages are spoken that are known, but the sense, the phrases, the meaning is unknown as speed, slang and unfamiliarity breeds a sense of isolation. We are the human equivalent of loft insulation to be hidden, we can dampen conversation and can make things a little sweaty under the collar. We are considered the cheap, environmentally alternative to raise the temperature.
We are international guests that can hardly speak to other guests. International borders are being respected. Mingling is a deletion in the next edition of the Oxford English dictionary.
We stand nervously by, as our host leaves his marrying duties to guide us to our weekend friends - the other English speakers. We feel guilty to have disrupted festivities and a bride alone looks on.
We are the international guests resting their laurels on the second tongue guests. We fail to understand the joke, we look bemused to feign understanding of the colloquial terms. But we are left thankful at the pidgin English, we are grateful not to be ring-fenced in an exclusion zone. We are not condemned to silence and family conversations that could have been equally boring at home.
So we at least can discuss the weather and how nice the bride looks. Both are excellent by the way, but excellence is not exactly on the tip of my tongue in terms of "Let us Party". She says she sees and the world applauds, we follow suit in delayed synchronicity, they are married. All around is happy. We are looking happy.
The air flights have been paid and damn, we will put alcohol on the tip of my tongue and quench a throat that is clear of vocabulaty, that is not being used for talking. We will enjoy as a red wine is passed around in ever decreasing circles and volume. Fuzzing brains somehow finds humour in the weather, laughs are made with hand gestures and finger pointing compensating for linguistic voids. In a small way, our victory is like the Berlin wall falling down, well...perhaps not.... but a small step in international peace has been made
Party on Pryces.
We are international guests that can hardly speak to other guests. International borders are being respected. Mingling is a deletion in the next edition of the Oxford English dictionary.
We stand nervously by, as our host leaves his marrying duties to guide us to our weekend friends - the other English speakers. We feel guilty to have disrupted festivities and a bride alone looks on.
We are the international guests resting their laurels on the second tongue guests. We fail to understand the joke, we look bemused to feign understanding of the colloquial terms. But we are left thankful at the pidgin English, we are grateful not to be ring-fenced in an exclusion zone. We are not condemned to silence and family conversations that could have been equally boring at home.
So we at least can discuss the weather and how nice the bride looks. Both are excellent by the way, but excellence is not exactly on the tip of my tongue in terms of "Let us Party". She says she sees and the world applauds, we follow suit in delayed synchronicity, they are married. All around is happy. We are looking happy.
The air flights have been paid and damn, we will put alcohol on the tip of my tongue and quench a throat that is clear of vocabulaty, that is not being used for talking. We will enjoy as a red wine is passed around in ever decreasing circles and volume. Fuzzing brains somehow finds humour in the weather, laughs are made with hand gestures and finger pointing compensating for linguistic voids. In a small way, our victory is like the Berlin wall falling down, well...perhaps not.... but a small step in international peace has been made
Party on Pryces.
Saturday, 12 June 2010
Sore Thumbs from World Cup Flag Waving
Sore thumbs... and let us hide the thumb screws just in case it sets minds a-racing.
This is the time where nationality, being British, cannot be hidden, we have procured the flag, we loyal to home turf. I am the Standard-bearer via an Astra combo car window. It all means a car stands out like a proverbial sore thumb - the foreigners are revealed, the spies in their midst revealed, our flag adorns window to show support, red and white flag ~the "home" flag ~ alone amongst other colours of the rainbow to show loyalty to "foreign homes" where the Pryce family have laid some temporary roots.
Foreign or home flags, depending on your birth certificate, adorn outside ex-patriate walls, hung like old-fashioned washing from a window. We dare to risk the wrath of a yob at 1 o'clock in the morning by showing loyalty to the homeland in sporting rivalry. Apparently yes.
This is not good. Our car has colours that fly in the wind and fly in the face of the home nation loyalty.
This wind that catches the flags is sadly apparently less of a force than that of footballers' deep breathing judging by TV replays. TV replays have to be explained now, where once it was "you watch nothing but football", now there is nothing but football and its somehow ok with the wife, because the magic words were not 'abra cadabra' or 'I love you' , but "World Cup".
The four year anniversary-time when wives ask to watch football. When the offside rule appears as important as a Jamie Oliver recipe. The sad thing is we both know, as our secret, an unwritten law, the skeleton in our closet, that wifey knowledge at football ended with the closing credits of 'Bend it with Beckham'. But here she - the wife - will watch, wave arms, makes claims of wrongdoing, and I will murmur contentedly in the knowledge we are not arguing about how much time I watch footie.
Instead I want to argue that explaining the offside rule mid-game is not on. A thousand lads in a thousand pubs would not be surprised if I espoused the "ball is moving in the air" and understand this was a genuine concern for national hopes, yet my wife thinks it strange that any goal is scored without the ball moving in the air... I ask you...the World Cup will be long.
Friends are invited around to celebrate a score draw that should have been a win, the ladies discussed on the sofa mid-game the important topics of their work and hairdo's. Mid-game! I point out, as one does, that gossipping is not exactly watching the game and I am told they know how to multi task. Unfortunately this multi-tasking female-over-male superiority, Venus-Mars duopoly, inherent alleged girlie evolutionary multi-tasking advantage rarely translates to ironing and making me a cup of tea. Instead it is a skill transformed in tasking my patience and yes I did say "he had the legs on him". And it makes sense to me.
Together we sit, all husbands, wives and home nation friends sit aghast that another player is felled by deep breathing and unless garlic is involved, we are not suspicious of evil spirits as the only source of foul play, we suspect play acting. We watch as flailing arms make forceful wafts of air seemingly able to floor an opponent clutching a face in agony and football is decided by actors. These footballers are like flags in the wind. Flags at low mast at that.
The kids support the team, the local team, the team that their freinds supports, the foreign national team, a pryce to pay in ex-pat integrated life and it is Ok, as long as my father turns in his grave and enjoys the views.
I am alone in the house dominated by the Plasma God, in supporting my roots, roots that were torn from the ground in search of the Euro-dollar and this thing called bread on the plate. I am alone with my flag, the kids are double agents, the wife is supporting Venus, the locals are local.
This is the time where nationality, being British, cannot be hidden, we have procured the flag, we loyal to home turf. I am the Standard-bearer via an Astra combo car window. It all means a car stands out like a proverbial sore thumb - the foreigners are revealed, the spies in their midst revealed, our flag adorns window to show support, red and white flag ~the "home" flag ~ alone amongst other colours of the rainbow to show loyalty to "foreign homes" where the Pryce family have laid some temporary roots.
Foreign or home flags, depending on your birth certificate, adorn outside ex-patriate walls, hung like old-fashioned washing from a window. We dare to risk the wrath of a yob at 1 o'clock in the morning by showing loyalty to the homeland in sporting rivalry. Apparently yes.
This is not good. Our car has colours that fly in the wind and fly in the face of the home nation loyalty.
This wind that catches the flags is sadly apparently less of a force than that of footballers' deep breathing judging by TV replays. TV replays have to be explained now, where once it was "you watch nothing but football", now there is nothing but football and its somehow ok with the wife, because the magic words were not 'abra cadabra' or 'I love you' , but "World Cup".
The four year anniversary-time when wives ask to watch football. When the offside rule appears as important as a Jamie Oliver recipe. The sad thing is we both know, as our secret, an unwritten law, the skeleton in our closet, that wifey knowledge at football ended with the closing credits of 'Bend it with Beckham'. But here she - the wife - will watch, wave arms, makes claims of wrongdoing, and I will murmur contentedly in the knowledge we are not arguing about how much time I watch footie.
Instead I want to argue that explaining the offside rule mid-game is not on. A thousand lads in a thousand pubs would not be surprised if I espoused the "ball is moving in the air" and understand this was a genuine concern for national hopes, yet my wife thinks it strange that any goal is scored without the ball moving in the air... I ask you...the World Cup will be long.
Friends are invited around to celebrate a score draw that should have been a win, the ladies discussed on the sofa mid-game the important topics of their work and hairdo's. Mid-game! I point out, as one does, that gossipping is not exactly watching the game and I am told they know how to multi task. Unfortunately this multi-tasking female-over-male superiority, Venus-Mars duopoly, inherent alleged girlie evolutionary multi-tasking advantage rarely translates to ironing and making me a cup of tea. Instead it is a skill transformed in tasking my patience and yes I did say "he had the legs on him". And it makes sense to me.
Together we sit, all husbands, wives and home nation friends sit aghast that another player is felled by deep breathing and unless garlic is involved, we are not suspicious of evil spirits as the only source of foul play, we suspect play acting. We watch as flailing arms make forceful wafts of air seemingly able to floor an opponent clutching a face in agony and football is decided by actors. These footballers are like flags in the wind. Flags at low mast at that.
The kids support the team, the local team, the team that their freinds supports, the foreign national team, a pryce to pay in ex-pat integrated life and it is Ok, as long as my father turns in his grave and enjoys the views.
I am alone in the house dominated by the Plasma God, in supporting my roots, roots that were torn from the ground in search of the Euro-dollar and this thing called bread on the plate. I am alone with my flag, the kids are double agents, the wife is supporting Venus, the locals are local.
England will play Germany..... England expects, I expect penalties and a John Terrrrrry could be a great rugby player.
Result 4:1 - the flag is briefly at half mast, as it is downed to save it from the eggs. I prepare myself to talk long and hard about goal-line technology. Tomorrow will be long and hard in the office, I may need a testerone injection to hold off the tears.
Saturday, 5 June 2010
Truth or dare
I am in the urban jungle and this thing in front of me is what we, from Blighty, call the "Zebra crossing" . I know my rights, I have read the book, I will exercise my rights ~the pedestrian's right ~ to stand tall, step out and to bring the mighty traffic system of some urban development to a halt. Take that petrol guzzler.
I am not in Blighty. I am here and here, it is my right to step out and take my own life in the capitals of Latin America.
Drivers blare horns at another infringement of their right to drive fast to the nearest traffic jam. Latino alter egos are released as their berzerker instinct is lit, with a turn of a car key. Sitting in a traffic queue for potentially seconds is against the Latin flair ~ a sin against a machismo humanity, especially where there is an accelerator peddle and a horn.
"Manana" stereotypes of the Latino procrastination goes out of the window, with the cigarette butts flying over driver elbows. Elbows perched nonchalantly ona window frame and by my guess not connecting a shoulder to a wheel, unless he is super lanky, as in deformed super lanky.
This is the Latino-land and in Latino-land there is a "I-feel-the-need-for-speed-gone-bad" mentality as tested at twenty interspersed pedestrian lights. A need for speed that obeys the laws of physics ~ action and reaction ~ the need to play footsie with rubbered metal, alternating between drive hard and brrrrraaaaake..... harder. Perhaps in time.... hopefully......perhaps not, where is the policia, where his driving licence, ...where is the hospital, where is that fairly important body part that was connected to his hip.
It takes a certain death wish for the northen European to put a toesy on the road. The truth is that the national legislation gives the pedestrian rights to step out without fear, without health insurance, without clean underpants and if .....if you dare the reality...the reality of local tradition, custom and practice, it will allow you to be mown down like a rag doll to a chorus of blaring horns and fingerpointing that it was your fault.
Letters to the Editor would be the first order of the day in Blighty as a concerned citizen, a patriot, a parent, a voter, an insurance claimant..... here your pen ink is saved, here your death-defying experience involves waiting patiently. Life's learning curve is gently moved along, as cars do not move along quite so gently.
Enough of the low road, let us not take the low crumbling pavement. It takes a certain type of bravery for the northern European driver not to be rear-ended by obeying the Carretera code at traffic lights...green...greenish-amber...aaaamber....aaaaamber....red.
Red lights are damned as the invention of the devil. Stop at red at your peril, Joe Europe, here there is an unseen half life decay of the previous amber, known only to the local Latino driver and the sympathetic Latino courts, as "pink-ish".
A different perspective, a life outside the tramlines, ever so slightly.
Hey let us take the train.
I am not in Blighty. I am here and here, it is my right to step out and take my own life in the capitals of Latin America.
Drivers blare horns at another infringement of their right to drive fast to the nearest traffic jam. Latino alter egos are released as their berzerker instinct is lit, with a turn of a car key. Sitting in a traffic queue for potentially seconds is against the Latin flair ~ a sin against a machismo humanity, especially where there is an accelerator peddle and a horn.
"Manana" stereotypes of the Latino procrastination goes out of the window, with the cigarette butts flying over driver elbows. Elbows perched nonchalantly ona window frame and by my guess not connecting a shoulder to a wheel, unless he is super lanky, as in deformed super lanky.
This is the Latino-land and in Latino-land there is a "I-feel-the-need-for-speed-gone-bad" mentality as tested at twenty interspersed pedestrian lights. A need for speed that obeys the laws of physics ~ action and reaction ~ the need to play footsie with rubbered metal, alternating between drive hard and brrrrraaaaake..... harder. Perhaps in time.... hopefully......perhaps not, where is the policia, where his driving licence, ...where is the hospital, where is that fairly important body part that was connected to his hip.
It takes a certain death wish for the northen European to put a toesy on the road. The truth is that the national legislation gives the pedestrian rights to step out without fear, without health insurance, without clean underpants and if .....if you dare the reality...the reality of local tradition, custom and practice, it will allow you to be mown down like a rag doll to a chorus of blaring horns and fingerpointing that it was your fault.
Letters to the Editor would be the first order of the day in Blighty as a concerned citizen, a patriot, a parent, a voter, an insurance claimant..... here your pen ink is saved, here your death-defying experience involves waiting patiently. Life's learning curve is gently moved along, as cars do not move along quite so gently.
Enough of the low road, let us not take the low crumbling pavement. It takes a certain type of bravery for the northern European driver not to be rear-ended by obeying the Carretera code at traffic lights...green...greenish-amber...aaaamber....aaaaamber....red.
Red lights are damned as the invention of the devil. Stop at red at your peril, Joe Europe, here there is an unseen half life decay of the previous amber, known only to the local Latino driver and the sympathetic Latino courts, as "pink-ish".
Many a time a European has swept away a nervous bead of sweat from a furrowed brow, in recognition, in honour at a culturally adept, red-tinged traffic light experience; a super-charged, call me "Hombre", pedal to the metal moment; only to notice two Latino object in the rear view mirror look closer than they are. And yes that is my bumper. They that have also made the cut, without dripping a sweat bead and are now swatting cigarette butts out of a window and cursing the fact a northern European is actually now braking, without a pretty lady in sight.
A different perspective, a life outside the tramlines, ever so slightly.
Hey let us take the train.
Thursday, 3 June 2010
small world versus Big World
The mating call of the ex-pat can be confused with two words learnt in all languages... "Two beers, dos cervezas, zwei biers....". We are ex-pats in thirst of wisdom but in the meantime alcohol will do. Ex-pats travelling the globe and drawn to the Church of those Lost abroad - The Irish Pub -The Cradle of Globalisation and the Grave of the Liver. Welcome to Expat world. And like any half decent theme park, rollercoasters dizziness is provided after 3 or more beers, and the water rides comes equipped with a Dyson hand-dryer
Today in Ex-pat World, a surprise face is twinned with a known face in a city of strangers. Surprised faces, my face has joined his in that double-take deja vous. We have been drawn by the mythical star of St Patrick to laydown ones' mobile and take sustenance called Guiness. We are like fleas drawn to the dim moody light, oversized screen and the fake signposts to Kilkarry East.
Today I stare at a memory without a label, he stares at me in a battle with amnesia. There we stare. A stare of recollection turning to recognition, the state of knowing something familiar and unfamiliar at the same point. Two worlds colliding - the past and present combusting ever so slightly that a brain is thrown off keel, until a smile, perhaps a finger point and a "How are you?", a handshake. I am in a "moment", as an analyst, poet or 'time and motion' study man may say. I am stress testing the Pryce synapses ~ Can I remember a name. I know the face from somewhere. He says his name and there is a God, he retreats a hand. He is now catalogued from a different time, a different city, a different country, same continent this time and we are well down the path of "well I never"s.
Tonight in Ex-pat World, another ex-pat mating game, the meeting of older faces is a timetabled via E-mails and mobiles. Its an eventual dividend - "the return" on the annual Christmas card to "the let's touch base" crowd, the networking, an old friend, an old colleague. A planned recognition. We are destined to meet, because we have arranged to meet, because we are in the same "of all the cities in all the world we had to..." - a reunion. A meeting place. A time is set. A beer fest in its foetal beginnings may be on the cards, if we have not matured from when we were friend, acquaintances and drunkards some god-forsaken years ago.
Tonight we blind date. Distant looks on the railway concourse and where in Heaven is he? and why is that old fella walking towards me ... Hiya. Surprise. Fifteen... or is it twenty years and I am surprised he's changed. Where was I when God was passing round the stupid gene .... front of the queue, my friend. He looks older, que sorpresa.
Home turf on the away leg is reached - Irish pub bonhomie. And quickly after a rush of news, a dialogue dedicatedto forgotten friends and enemies, a mutual shared interview without job prospect, and the conversation trickles into a flow as if we had nodded goodbye at the local last Saturday. Return of the drunkards.
And in all this, the moral is that this and every friendship is needed in this cruel world. I have learnt that friends are dearly needed, not only for solace, not only for laughs, not only for grounding the ego, not only for benchmarking the success. They are needed when the hand of the "Man" decides you are to be crushed; these fellows, these "citizens of world" provide hospice, provides a helping hand to raise you when you have been knocked down, to look away from your shame-faced tears with a tissue in their fingertips when the redundancy notice has been served, to massage an ego bruised to its shell, to re-categorise success as survival, to teach you success, teach you to survive, to pass on tips.
So where the Mighty Businesses eventually cares little for its greatest asset, once declared as a Pluralistic You on a Company Website as in "You are our greatest asset". It never cared for the individual you and even your perhaps brilliance recorded in the annual appraisal was recorded without a first or second care. When times are hard, times are hard. Times change, times are dynamic and when economic crisis are two a penny with a bottom line decidely red, it is a time to ready the CV.
Times are hard. The backside kicking is tried and weathered. Then the backstabbing is pursued, as survival of the inner circle of trust is a must ~ Survival of the Dirtiest, if you like ~and the outer circle is a sad place for Freelances to reside. The Company resorts, sometimes slides to outsourcing, downsizing, firing. Being good is sometimes not good enough.
A Company takes a shine to another way forward, a CEO-driven top-down panacea , as recommended by analysts' Pandora's box, lions lead by donkeys on a merry-go-round that invites backsides to be bitten or kissed. It is their "it's not personal view" of Corporate Mission Statements, that did not include the dude on the third floor with the up-to-date paperwork who's there at 8 in the morning to 8 at night. The dude must go.
He must go home to his family to explain. Then he must join the Sad Dude society. He joins the virtual re-hab of friends, acquaintances, recommended friends of friends' help for they know it could be them in this fickle freelance world. The life that was falling apart is re-built and there is costs, it means moving on in the big world, exciting as it once was, and still can be, each and every 'this time', it comes a little bit harder. The Humpty Dumpty "ego-built" egg shell is glued together and it may not be so pretty, but the cracks show "been there, done it, made it" through with a little help of my Christmas Card friends, the surprised friends and the real friends
Now new friends to be made, new offices to arrive early in and leave late. More Christmas cards to write.
The Pryce we pay in the Modern world. Time for a Guiness or three
Today in Ex-pat World, a surprise face is twinned with a known face in a city of strangers. Surprised faces, my face has joined his in that double-take deja vous. We have been drawn by the mythical star of St Patrick to laydown ones' mobile and take sustenance called Guiness. We are like fleas drawn to the dim moody light, oversized screen and the fake signposts to Kilkarry East.
Today I stare at a memory without a label, he stares at me in a battle with amnesia. There we stare. A stare of recollection turning to recognition, the state of knowing something familiar and unfamiliar at the same point. Two worlds colliding - the past and present combusting ever so slightly that a brain is thrown off keel, until a smile, perhaps a finger point and a "How are you?", a handshake. I am in a "moment", as an analyst, poet or 'time and motion' study man may say. I am stress testing the Pryce synapses ~ Can I remember a name. I know the face from somewhere. He says his name and there is a God, he retreats a hand. He is now catalogued from a different time, a different city, a different country, same continent this time and we are well down the path of "well I never"s.
Tonight in Ex-pat World, another ex-pat mating game, the meeting of older faces is a timetabled via E-mails and mobiles. Its an eventual dividend - "the return" on the annual Christmas card to "the let's touch base" crowd, the networking, an old friend, an old colleague. A planned recognition. We are destined to meet, because we have arranged to meet, because we are in the same "of all the cities in all the world we had to..." - a reunion. A meeting place. A time is set. A beer fest in its foetal beginnings may be on the cards, if we have not matured from when we were friend, acquaintances and drunkards some god-forsaken years ago.
Tonight we blind date. Distant looks on the railway concourse and where in Heaven is he? and why is that old fella walking towards me ... Hiya. Surprise. Fifteen... or is it twenty years and I am surprised he's changed. Where was I when God was passing round the stupid gene .... front of the queue, my friend. He looks older, que sorpresa.
Home turf on the away leg is reached - Irish pub bonhomie. And quickly after a rush of news, a dialogue dedicatedto forgotten friends and enemies, a mutual shared interview without job prospect, and the conversation trickles into a flow as if we had nodded goodbye at the local last Saturday. Return of the drunkards.
And in all this, the moral is that this and every friendship is needed in this cruel world. I have learnt that friends are dearly needed, not only for solace, not only for laughs, not only for grounding the ego, not only for benchmarking the success. They are needed when the hand of the "Man" decides you are to be crushed; these fellows, these "citizens of world" provide hospice, provides a helping hand to raise you when you have been knocked down, to look away from your shame-faced tears with a tissue in their fingertips when the redundancy notice has been served, to massage an ego bruised to its shell, to re-categorise success as survival, to teach you success, teach you to survive, to pass on tips.
So where the Mighty Businesses eventually cares little for its greatest asset, once declared as a Pluralistic You on a Company Website as in "You are our greatest asset". It never cared for the individual you and even your perhaps brilliance recorded in the annual appraisal was recorded without a first or second care. When times are hard, times are hard. Times change, times are dynamic and when economic crisis are two a penny with a bottom line decidely red, it is a time to ready the CV.
Times are hard. The backside kicking is tried and weathered. Then the backstabbing is pursued, as survival of the inner circle of trust is a must ~ Survival of the Dirtiest, if you like ~and the outer circle is a sad place for Freelances to reside. The Company resorts, sometimes slides to outsourcing, downsizing, firing. Being good is sometimes not good enough.
A Company takes a shine to another way forward, a CEO-driven top-down panacea , as recommended by analysts' Pandora's box, lions lead by donkeys on a merry-go-round that invites backsides to be bitten or kissed. It is their "it's not personal view" of Corporate Mission Statements, that did not include the dude on the third floor with the up-to-date paperwork who's there at 8 in the morning to 8 at night. The dude must go.
He must go home to his family to explain. Then he must join the Sad Dude society. He joins the virtual re-hab of friends, acquaintances, recommended friends of friends' help for they know it could be them in this fickle freelance world. The life that was falling apart is re-built and there is costs, it means moving on in the big world, exciting as it once was, and still can be, each and every 'this time', it comes a little bit harder. The Humpty Dumpty "ego-built" egg shell is glued together and it may not be so pretty, but the cracks show "been there, done it, made it" through with a little help of my Christmas Card friends, the surprised friends and the real friends
Now new friends to be made, new offices to arrive early in and leave late. More Christmas cards to write.
The Pryce we pay in the Modern world. Time for a Guiness or three
Monday, 31 May 2010
Losing one's heritage
Many years ago I laughed with a friend over the comic genius of Shakespeare, because it was not. To have a semblance of understanding of rhyming couplet comic genius was to stand up as both old and wrong. We pupils knew Shakespeare did not cut edges. Shakespeare was a punishment that was akin to to writing lines - a "legal academic low", if you like. It was read as a chore whose rhyming couplet was bore. A Shakesperean play that was so full of so-called humour it required an explanation that doubled the book by half with a series of footnotes. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, Need I say more.
Shakespeare was read as a requirement borne from necessity of an O-level English literature grade, it was a price to pay. Shakespeare was ultimately a joined-up handwritten end-of-term lie that we wrote on examination papers because we wrote the words the English teacher said as if it was an history paper- we said it was funny because that got marks. And an English teacher were categorised as not going down the pub material, if you wanted a laugh.
A phone call home, a long-distance connection, a connection to the past, an affirmation of the present, that we are still friends. Our humour, our joint shared link that certain things are funny, hilarious to us. My friend makes a recommendation - "You will love it"....."Youtube, just write...."
Later I am taken up by the internet challenge to laugh as much as my mate has laughed at. A brief tapping of digits as dextrous as an old-school typing-pool typist - the computer awakes.
I am connected to a wider world, from my foreign home, that shares my mother tongue too. "Youtube" brings all stars-for-fifteen-minutes into my life and I am shown the bright new crop of top, on-the-edge, left-of-centre stand-up comics that barely registers a who? Whilst Great Britain has rocked in mirth over recent years, I have politely smiled at the jokes of my foreign friends that I do not understand but I may or may not have been the butt of. Now these new Brit generation of comedians famous to my friend, but I am not tuned into the character, the subtlety of the irony, the metaphor of comic revelation that makes something topical and comical. References are made, apparently genuinely laughed at and I am only bemused in a state of should I be laughing. I am not understanding a world that I once knew and took for granted. It is a world away. My friend's world. A lost World. A recommended world. A world I do not understand. And I am losing it. A smiling politely straw to break the camel's back.
These modern Youtube clips are not funny, not rubbing the Pryce funny bone. I have crossed the line and I am adrift, not just lost in translation of a common language. I am losing the slang, the cross references to local heroes that have not crossed the Channel, the oceans; just like Shakespeare was lost on me so many years ago - a joke is not funny if it needs an explanation.
And I did not notice that with each passing year the distance was not only physical but human. Skype can only meet the sense of sight and sound, smell and touch has gone and even sight and sound is pixelled and sound bytes. The Modern world globalised and the umbilical cord to home was strained - not localised.
I am out of sync with the homeland, becoming detached, knowledgeable of a different locality. Its the pryce one pays. Now I am the english teacher lost in the comic genius of the past, that no-one would go down the pub with.
I play piano of sorts on the laptop keyboard to a different beat and age. Forgotten characters, vintage comedy is revisited on Youtube.
A skype connection is made. Another phone-call, a shared recollection, a remembered character and how we laughed, a common point, a moment in the past, a time when our lines not only crossed they inter-twined and I wish now a simple wish. A simple wish for lives to cross once more.
Knowing for now, conversations with home-based friends are trapped in a time warp of shared recollected laugh at former times. But it is a laugh, a common honest laugh. A side-splitting thread to hold onto.
I know to break the chains of salaried wealth, mortgaged debt, medical insurance poverty and a family to feed will not be broken yet. Time to dream upon a fifteen minute star.
Shakespeare was read as a requirement borne from necessity of an O-level English literature grade, it was a price to pay. Shakespeare was ultimately a joined-up handwritten end-of-term lie that we wrote on examination papers because we wrote the words the English teacher said as if it was an history paper- we said it was funny because that got marks. And an English teacher were categorised as not going down the pub material, if you wanted a laugh.
A phone call home, a long-distance connection, a connection to the past, an affirmation of the present, that we are still friends. Our humour, our joint shared link that certain things are funny, hilarious to us. My friend makes a recommendation - "You will love it"....."Youtube, just write...."
Later I am taken up by the internet challenge to laugh as much as my mate has laughed at. A brief tapping of digits as dextrous as an old-school typing-pool typist - the computer awakes.
I am connected to a wider world, from my foreign home, that shares my mother tongue too. "Youtube" brings all stars-for-fifteen-minutes into my life and I am shown the bright new crop of top, on-the-edge, left-of-centre stand-up comics that barely registers a who? Whilst Great Britain has rocked in mirth over recent years, I have politely smiled at the jokes of my foreign friends that I do not understand but I may or may not have been the butt of. Now these new Brit generation of comedians famous to my friend, but I am not tuned into the character, the subtlety of the irony, the metaphor of comic revelation that makes something topical and comical. References are made, apparently genuinely laughed at and I am only bemused in a state of should I be laughing. I am not understanding a world that I once knew and took for granted. It is a world away. My friend's world. A lost World. A recommended world. A world I do not understand. And I am losing it. A smiling politely straw to break the camel's back.
These modern Youtube clips are not funny, not rubbing the Pryce funny bone. I have crossed the line and I am adrift, not just lost in translation of a common language. I am losing the slang, the cross references to local heroes that have not crossed the Channel, the oceans; just like Shakespeare was lost on me so many years ago - a joke is not funny if it needs an explanation.
And I did not notice that with each passing year the distance was not only physical but human. Skype can only meet the sense of sight and sound, smell and touch has gone and even sight and sound is pixelled and sound bytes. The Modern world globalised and the umbilical cord to home was strained - not localised.
I am out of sync with the homeland, becoming detached, knowledgeable of a different locality. Its the pryce one pays. Now I am the english teacher lost in the comic genius of the past, that no-one would go down the pub with.
I play piano of sorts on the laptop keyboard to a different beat and age. Forgotten characters, vintage comedy is revisited on Youtube.
A skype connection is made. Another phone-call, a shared recollection, a remembered character and how we laughed, a common point, a moment in the past, a time when our lines not only crossed they inter-twined and I wish now a simple wish. A simple wish for lives to cross once more.
Knowing for now, conversations with home-based friends are trapped in a time warp of shared recollected laugh at former times. But it is a laugh, a common honest laugh. A side-splitting thread to hold onto.
I know to break the chains of salaried wealth, mortgaged debt, medical insurance poverty and a family to feed will not be broken yet. Time to dream upon a fifteen minute star.
Friday, 28 May 2010
Wherever I lay my hat
Tom Jones once sang about his hat and having a lay, but it may have been just gossip.
My hat has been laid for the moment in this foreign land that feels like a No-man's land, I am neither foe nor friend here. I am an ex-pat who does not know how many Allied bombs lay unexploded in this city. I do know three have been discovered since I sat at the office desk and the office was told to go home. Some countries may throw sickies, here somebody digs in his back garden. So it is with trepidation I sit amongst the regulars of the downtown pub and ask why the man with a sinister-looking eye in the corner is giving me eyeball. Is he wondering why his granny's 'brotchen' shop was suddenly a tad smaller in 1944. It is stange in a matter of sixty or so years later things change, we are allies. I only stay for one, but not out of fear of reprisals, but from economy.
Today I am not counting Danger UXB's, I am counting my pounds shilling and pence and if the UK mortgage is surviving the machinations of the exchange rate.
I am trying to balance supply and demand - the supply of the Sterling dollar exchanged to Euros determines a family lifestyle, against a demand by means-tested children, thinking a Playstation is an essential to life because the rest of the class can wipe out an alien army at level four or something like that. Means tested in the sense that my children think I am mean for not agreeing the latest Nintendo DS GTR Turbo limited edition should be added to their magnificent collection because Jean-Claude Heinz has got one and they are testing my patience.
Action man is no longer cutting the mustard.
My hat laying skills have not exactly gone to plan. Redundancies, job offers, re-locations to the highest-ish bidder and, a hey presto, I am here counting the pennies in Euro-cents in the hope I can later not only count the costs in Euros, but internet-password the payment.
Medicines may be "sans Frontiers", but Medical Insurance fully recognises borders with a multipier factor index designed to make ex-pat poverty a companion to health. Family health costs money that will have the Pryce family cherishing days when the bread came with dripping, "what, no dripping Pa".
I have paid handsome sums to people to find me a house and met them for fifteem minutes, I have paid large rental deposits and fought forlornly for their return, I have paid notaries to be notaries because they were apparently important in a legal system it would take several years to barely grasp its ass, I have paid people weekly to teach me a second language when they spoke my first nearly daily, I have paid people to connect me to the 'www ' that were re-employed to disconnect the same, I have paid in bordeom and frustration for ID cards in bureaucratic waiting queues rather worst cost than the actual cost, I have been scammed for not reading the small print when I could not read any of the print, I have paid for extra-large satellite dishes long abandoned on a roof, I have paid to move undamaged possessions of which ownership is 9 tenths of the law and realised that left 1 tenth to fall off the lorry, and I have learnt to be friends with long ago foes.
I have......complained, and hoped it was being human. I am still whinging and winging it and hoping I will survive this adventure of sorts.
I am still wondering the wisdom of a career choice of hat laying or brick laying, but like what the locals call beer is coloured water under the urinal bridge. Time to look forward, perhaps time to move on.
My hat has been laid for the moment in this foreign land that feels like a No-man's land, I am neither foe nor friend here. I am an ex-pat who does not know how many Allied bombs lay unexploded in this city. I do know three have been discovered since I sat at the office desk and the office was told to go home. Some countries may throw sickies, here somebody digs in his back garden. So it is with trepidation I sit amongst the regulars of the downtown pub and ask why the man with a sinister-looking eye in the corner is giving me eyeball. Is he wondering why his granny's 'brotchen' shop was suddenly a tad smaller in 1944. It is stange in a matter of sixty or so years later things change, we are allies. I only stay for one, but not out of fear of reprisals, but from economy.
Today I am not counting Danger UXB's, I am counting my pounds shilling and pence and if the UK mortgage is surviving the machinations of the exchange rate.
I am trying to balance supply and demand - the supply of the Sterling dollar exchanged to Euros determines a family lifestyle, against a demand by means-tested children, thinking a Playstation is an essential to life because the rest of the class can wipe out an alien army at level four or something like that. Means tested in the sense that my children think I am mean for not agreeing the latest Nintendo DS GTR Turbo limited edition should be added to their magnificent collection because Jean-Claude Heinz has got one and they are testing my patience.
Action man is no longer cutting the mustard.
My hat laying skills have not exactly gone to plan. Redundancies, job offers, re-locations to the highest-ish bidder and, a hey presto, I am here counting the pennies in Euro-cents in the hope I can later not only count the costs in Euros, but internet-password the payment.
Medicines may be "sans Frontiers", but Medical Insurance fully recognises borders with a multipier factor index designed to make ex-pat poverty a companion to health. Family health costs money that will have the Pryce family cherishing days when the bread came with dripping, "what, no dripping Pa".
I have paid handsome sums to people to find me a house and met them for fifteem minutes, I have paid large rental deposits and fought forlornly for their return, I have paid notaries to be notaries because they were apparently important in a legal system it would take several years to barely grasp its ass, I have paid people weekly to teach me a second language when they spoke my first nearly daily, I have paid people to connect me to the 'www ' that were re-employed to disconnect the same, I have paid in bordeom and frustration for ID cards in bureaucratic waiting queues rather worst cost than the actual cost, I have been scammed for not reading the small print when I could not read any of the print, I have paid for extra-large satellite dishes long abandoned on a roof, I have paid to move undamaged possessions of which ownership is 9 tenths of the law and realised that left 1 tenth to fall off the lorry, and I have learnt to be friends with long ago foes.
I have......complained, and hoped it was being human. I am still whinging and winging it and hoping I will survive this adventure of sorts.
I am still wondering the wisdom of a career choice of hat laying or brick laying, but like what the locals call beer is coloured water under the urinal bridge. Time to look forward, perhaps time to move on.
Sunday, 23 May 2010
Chocolate
If you want to have a taxi arrive at the allotted hour, it is not the booking in advance, it is not the confirmation e-mails, it is not the whatever.... it is buying the secretary a present from outer Mong-vuelia-kust. Brownie points are to be earned. Bonus Points are given if there is substantive evidence that the Credit Card monthly expenses is not cross referenced to "Duty free". Chocolate is welcomed to substitute for true affection but... but it is not the gift of secretarial choice. The gift needs to be rarer, unique, to be so wondrous that it can be gently dropped into a secretarial gatherings that her boss is statistically better than their boss. And in due course the taxi arrives nearly on time.
The secretary would prefer ....wants a local gift from the end of the world where the big deal is going down. A present to be presented to her to reflect her true worth as a taxi organiser. These gifts are covered by real net of tax, real money -my money, I am the one putting the "i" in taxi - secretarial tithe, secretarial tax. A special gift that probably once was a King's treasure protected by a dragon half way up a mountain that unlocked a princess' kiss.
Nowadays the best one can do is a mad search by a delegated local secretary to buy something for the non-local head office secretary with a mad dash round three blocks and half of a local flea mart called C&Local, that at best will eventually unlock a secretary's half-smile.
And by some comic reflection and perhaps a hint of magic in the air, the secretarial dragon feels a little obliged to put up with one's foibles such as my taxi organising foible. Chocolate is not cutting it any more.
The secretary would prefer ....wants a local gift from the end of the world where the big deal is going down. A present to be presented to her to reflect her true worth as a taxi organiser. These gifts are covered by real net of tax, real money -my money, I am the one putting the "i" in taxi - secretarial tithe, secretarial tax. A special gift that probably once was a King's treasure protected by a dragon half way up a mountain that unlocked a princess' kiss.
Nowadays the best one can do is a mad search by a delegated local secretary to buy something for the non-local head office secretary with a mad dash round three blocks and half of a local flea mart called C&Local, that at best will eventually unlock a secretary's half-smile.
And by some comic reflection and perhaps a hint of magic in the air, the secretarial dragon feels a little obliged to put up with one's foibles such as my taxi organising foible. Chocolate is not cutting it any more.
Thursday, 13 May 2010
They got me on Caffeine and alcohol
The bid is due, we knew the bid was due, but the bid budget was not agreed, so a cast of thousands could not be mobilised, instead we twiddled thumbs on a general Sales market research budget, until the Managing Director picked a nose, wiped an astronomically large stain of spilt milk from his table, probably, and decided "Team to GO" or words to that effect. Thunderbirds we are not. So three weeks of what could have been planning, organisation and doing a good job, is disolved in a headless chicken dash to make it look good at all costs, that is all costs within the budget.
Then a small print requirement is read, is reported, eyes are cast upward in seeking divine guidance and seeking a restuctured management. God is not on our side this day, all documents are required in the local lingo, yes... the local lingo, hire a local lingo person, hire a local lingo person at ridiculous expense and damn the budget.
Families are abandoned, wives join dating agencies, children check out "Fathers'R'Us'. Late hours are worked and not booked. Booking hours would further break the budget and break your career. So caffeine is drunk with a note to get the intravenous supplies next time. For now industrial strength coffee is slurped as if was never meant to be held in a mug when there is stomach wall needing scalding.
A chicken careers past in hope his career will survive and prosper, but I stay put as I remember my head should be on my shoulders. Putting the bid in on time is a battle not a war, winning the bid is the war. I am in the same league as a duracell bunny in old money. Let us read the bid again. Let us quibble on numbers. Let us get drunk on coffee until my mind fuzzes and admits defeats, this battle may not win the war. The batteries fade and I am left with two lucky rabbit foots that is not so good for the unlucky amputee bunny. Time to ruffle the feathers.
And mine's a pint.
Then a small print requirement is read, is reported, eyes are cast upward in seeking divine guidance and seeking a restuctured management. God is not on our side this day, all documents are required in the local lingo, yes... the local lingo, hire a local lingo person, hire a local lingo person at ridiculous expense and damn the budget.
Families are abandoned, wives join dating agencies, children check out "Fathers'R'Us'. Late hours are worked and not booked. Booking hours would further break the budget and break your career. So caffeine is drunk with a note to get the intravenous supplies next time. For now industrial strength coffee is slurped as if was never meant to be held in a mug when there is stomach wall needing scalding.
A chicken careers past in hope his career will survive and prosper, but I stay put as I remember my head should be on my shoulders. Putting the bid in on time is a battle not a war, winning the bid is the war. I am in the same league as a duracell bunny in old money. Let us read the bid again. Let us quibble on numbers. Let us get drunk on coffee until my mind fuzzes and admits defeats, this battle may not win the war. The batteries fade and I am left with two lucky rabbit foots that is not so good for the unlucky amputee bunny. Time to ruffle the feathers.
And mine's a pint.
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Never get between a Man and his E-mail
For some it may be a sense of manhood, but those executives switched on in the hotel lobby proud to prove theirs is smaller than mine. They show off their mini-micro-computer-to-hide-in-a-matchbox computer box of tricks.
Mine is larger than yours proves I am a lesser exec. This is a matter of far more bearing than exaggerations of the trouser snake to the hunted by Headhunters. Here the executives communicate with fingers to the Corporate world beyonf the lobby walls, that may be sleeping in readiness to respond tomorrow. In all of this world of the hotel lobby, we are important, we are seen to be important, but.....
I am in contrast virtually needing a trolley to cart my laptop, yes I am still not a notebook, palm book, fingerprint book or whatever.
But I am a man on a misssion to connect to the distant HQ with the essential E-mail with the attachment that is urgent. Blackberry is relegated to a pocket. Rights to use the internet is negotiated with hotel staff, we are wi-fi'd until the password fails, password works after the local hotel help ~ "help the stupid executive" person, that is ~ has been called, the hotel representative spells my password correctly from the same sheet that I apparently could not read. My face may look a picture of damned stupidity having changed from my holier-than-thou face of "do they not realise this is I urgent" and "I am an Executive". Oh to be humble.
Connected to the global rays, the subterranean cables, connected- yeah - connected in sloooo...owmo - minutes delayed... minutes. Re-boots unrewarded as patience is necessary, delivery is delayed. Chill....calm the trigger finger...time cannot wait ....time will wait because that's the way it is. Success...patience rewarded. Hoorah for internet.
Mine is larger than yours proves I am a lesser exec. This is a matter of far more bearing than exaggerations of the trouser snake to the hunted by Headhunters. Here the executives communicate with fingers to the Corporate world beyonf the lobby walls, that may be sleeping in readiness to respond tomorrow. In all of this world of the hotel lobby, we are important, we are seen to be important, but.....
I am in contrast virtually needing a trolley to cart my laptop, yes I am still not a notebook, palm book, fingerprint book or whatever.
But I am a man on a misssion to connect to the distant HQ with the essential E-mail with the attachment that is urgent. Blackberry is relegated to a pocket. Rights to use the internet is negotiated with hotel staff, we are wi-fi'd until the password fails, password works after the local hotel help ~ "help the stupid executive" person, that is ~ has been called, the hotel representative spells my password correctly from the same sheet that I apparently could not read. My face may look a picture of damned stupidity having changed from my holier-than-thou face of "do they not realise this is I urgent" and "I am an Executive". Oh to be humble.
Connected to the global rays, the subterranean cables, connected- yeah - connected in sloooo...owmo - minutes delayed... minutes. Re-boots unrewarded as patience is necessary, delivery is delayed. Chill....calm the trigger finger...time cannot wait ....time will wait because that's the way it is. Success...patience rewarded. Hoorah for internet.
Saturday, 24 April 2010
Translator Wanted
Step forward my child, today I promote you to adulthood, tell the Sales Manager that I want to buy his brand spanking new electronical gadget.....
Stupdity is dumped upon me as I cannot buy a something, essential to ordinary life in the modern world like an i-pod. I am a foreigner in his store. I must confer with the Sales Manager to buy this new toy. I must refer to a son who has culturally adapted, I must defer to my boy who speaks the lingo, who can show me up with a shared laugh with the Sales Manager and who knows if its at my expense. They do.
Role reversal humbles me, this would probably occupy a behavioural scientist for a thesis or two.
Money is exchanged and my boy is happy with his new i-Pod and role reversal returns me to my rightful place and we thank the Power of the Credit Card.
Damned by my search for the Euro-dollar, saved by my search for the Euro-dollar. There may be a life lesson here that I should determine if I have found a metaphor, an allegory, a paradigm, or a resolution.
Instead a resolution is made to return to the language lessons, to watch the local TV, to read the local papers, to culturally integrate, a resolution to not enjoy myself after work after not enjoying myself at work. One day I will thank myself and that one day is probably when the Euro shadow of 'Sky' dawns and a subscription has been paid.
Stupdity is dumped upon me as I cannot buy a something, essential to ordinary life in the modern world like an i-pod. I am a foreigner in his store. I must confer with the Sales Manager to buy this new toy. I must refer to a son who has culturally adapted, I must defer to my boy who speaks the lingo, who can show me up with a shared laugh with the Sales Manager and who knows if its at my expense. They do.
Role reversal humbles me, this would probably occupy a behavioural scientist for a thesis or two.
Money is exchanged and my boy is happy with his new i-Pod and role reversal returns me to my rightful place and we thank the Power of the Credit Card.
Damned by my search for the Euro-dollar, saved by my search for the Euro-dollar. There may be a life lesson here that I should determine if I have found a metaphor, an allegory, a paradigm, or a resolution.
Instead a resolution is made to return to the language lessons, to watch the local TV, to read the local papers, to culturally integrate, a resolution to not enjoy myself after work after not enjoying myself at work. One day I will thank myself and that one day is probably when the Euro shadow of 'Sky' dawns and a subscription has been paid.
Sunday, 18 April 2010
Stuck in the Middle....
Like a song I am stuck in the middle of Nowhere with you, and this is not a Love Song, an old school 45 repeating the line of what was a nice song now kaputt, boredom-to- super-panicked in nano seconds, de-fibrillators on standby, my overdue heart attack could be seconds away. I am in a foreign airport with an associate that business wise one can tolerate, but as a holiday buddy this is straining all things strainable. The flight is delayed......the flight is cancelled. This business trip is fast becoming an unplanned unwanted holiday.
Ash cloud over Europe, damn the Earth's crust. God is not being kind to me, and I'm not talking only about the age of my Blackberry. In ten years time my B;ackberry will be a "classic", now it is of a vintage to show I am an executive hippie in an era of glam rock dial tones.
Nevertheless my Blackberry works and it is a Mobile casting its "Rescue Me" rays to Head Office to tell me what am I, what we are supposed to do, when to stay put, when to go home via car, train , planes and automoblies er sorry not planes. Prayer to God or Gods, whatever one thinks may work, prayers are relegated by a need to trot out pagan rituals to the Ash God. Changing religions is a possibility turning probability, all things being equal. Cigarette smokers producing ash in their cubicles under a ventilation system on 'Max'; whilst the rest of us cast our eyes at our fellow humans with their ciggy-stress-relief, they are demonised by association to ash. Ash is bad. Smoking kills, ash makes me stay in an airport lounge for possibly days. Ash is bad.
And by the luck of the the Irish third cousin removed, I am, we are crammed into a four-five-six hour journey by a trans-Europe train, where creature comforts are gladly forgone to be going home. Gladly forgone for the first hour, until my own sweat is smelt, my mate's sweat is smelt, the stranger's sweat is smelt and the petite lady's perspiration is winning the air wars with Chanel. My leg muscle is painful and the knee reminds me that I am getting old. Elbows are needed to mark out your turf. We, my holiday buddy, mark out our turf.
Business is business. Friends are friends in adversity.
Ash cloud over Europe, damn the Earth's crust. God is not being kind to me, and I'm not talking only about the age of my Blackberry. In ten years time my B;ackberry will be a "classic", now it is of a vintage to show I am an executive hippie in an era of glam rock dial tones.
Nevertheless my Blackberry works and it is a Mobile casting its "Rescue Me" rays to Head Office to tell me what am I, what we are supposed to do, when to stay put, when to go home via car, train , planes and automoblies er sorry not planes. Prayer to God or Gods, whatever one thinks may work, prayers are relegated by a need to trot out pagan rituals to the Ash God. Changing religions is a possibility turning probability, all things being equal. Cigarette smokers producing ash in their cubicles under a ventilation system on 'Max'; whilst the rest of us cast our eyes at our fellow humans with their ciggy-stress-relief, they are demonised by association to ash. Ash is bad. Smoking kills, ash makes me stay in an airport lounge for possibly days. Ash is bad.
And by the luck of the the Irish third cousin removed, I am, we are crammed into a four-five-six hour journey by a trans-Europe train, where creature comforts are gladly forgone to be going home. Gladly forgone for the first hour, until my own sweat is smelt, my mate's sweat is smelt, the stranger's sweat is smelt and the petite lady's perspiration is winning the air wars with Chanel. My leg muscle is painful and the knee reminds me that I am getting old. Elbows are needed to mark out your turf. We, my holiday buddy, mark out our turf.
Business is business. Friends are friends in adversity.
Sunday, 11 April 2010
Comfort Zones
Planes, trains and automobiles and taxis and shanks pony and leaves on tracks.....and delays, so international travellers need to seize the moment, seize the delayed moment, the non-executive stress moment to chill. Chilling and airports may not be natural bedfellows but needs must. Executive business travellers morph the airport into a comfort zone preferably courtesy of silver, gold and platinum cards.
The VIP lounge, the free biscuits, newspaper, a sandwich and perhaps a bitter shandy. A chair that is soft on the executive behind. There is a thousand languages and here there is a mix of some dozen with a prevalence to the local tongue and English. Speaking English - the great advantage except at the Business Meeting when the Brit side of the table whisper their secrets whilst the other side spark off a diatribe of sounds each other in their own code, their own language brazenly proving their are better than us. Industrial strageies are divulged openly, compromises withdrawn in front of our faces, we tweek our ears and believe we understand an odd word that gives no clue. These meetings have no comfort zone.
The VIP lounge, the free biscuits, newspaper, a sandwich and perhaps a bitter shandy. A chair that is soft on the executive behind. There is a thousand languages and here there is a mix of some dozen with a prevalence to the local tongue and English. Speaking English - the great advantage except at the Business Meeting when the Brit side of the table whisper their secrets whilst the other side spark off a diatribe of sounds each other in their own code, their own language brazenly proving their are better than us. Industrial strageies are divulged openly, compromises withdrawn in front of our faces, we tweek our ears and believe we understand an odd word that gives no clue. These meetings have no comfort zone.
Friday, 2 April 2010
Eastern
Mayor or major - its the big Ex-pat question.
In the first ex-pat years I was the Grand Educator, if a correction was called for, I corrected....."I think my non-speaker-of-English colleague, when you said, er-her, "maJor" I think you meant, were referring to the local chief of community that we British call "Mare", spelt "MaY-or", its the beauty of the English language, my non-native friends". I learnt that my education was not always welcomed...some were happy in majoring in the universal tongue of making english simpler. They may or may not have wanted to thump me as their secret dream.
By some years later of ex-pat cultural integration of Shutting up, Bearing it and eating the Bumble Pie, my corrections of the natives minor errors was reduced to one German word "ostern" which roughly translates as 'Eastern', but this word was also the word in reference to and commemorates that holiday time of eggs and bunnies and March hares. So Fool as I am I broke the learning curve of those hard earned ex-pat years ~ The Great Educator returned ~ "My Deutsche friend when you said EasterN... I think..... if I may correct my ....my dear native speaking person trying gallantly to speak my mother tongue, er-hum...it is pronounced 'Easter with no N' ". I continue for the full, unadulterated full extent of me, myself, I effect.... "As in EasteR rhyming with ....with ...with feasteR...yes of course feaster is a word...... its a , thirteenth century tribute to king Henry, or Harry to the locals, ...look it up in Wiki."
And my foreign friend says to me "Is that why Joe calls you half-cut with or without an N".
I believe the natives have been taught a tad too well.
In the first ex-pat years I was the Grand Educator, if a correction was called for, I corrected....."I think my non-speaker-of-English colleague, when you said, er-her, "maJor" I think you meant, were referring to the local chief of community that we British call "Mare", spelt "MaY-or", its the beauty of the English language, my non-native friends". I learnt that my education was not always welcomed...some were happy in majoring in the universal tongue of making english simpler. They may or may not have wanted to thump me as their secret dream.
By some years later of ex-pat cultural integration of Shutting up, Bearing it and eating the Bumble Pie, my corrections of the natives minor errors was reduced to one German word "ostern" which roughly translates as 'Eastern', but this word was also the word in reference to and commemorates that holiday time of eggs and bunnies and March hares. So Fool as I am I broke the learning curve of those hard earned ex-pat years ~ The Great Educator returned ~ "My Deutsche friend when you said EasterN... I think..... if I may correct my ....my dear native speaking person trying gallantly to speak my mother tongue, er-hum...it is pronounced 'Easter with no N' ". I continue for the full, unadulterated full extent of me, myself, I effect.... "As in EasteR rhyming with ....with ...with feasteR...yes of course feaster is a word...... its a , thirteenth century tribute to king Henry, or Harry to the locals, ...look it up in Wiki."
And my foreign friend says to me "Is that why Joe calls you half-cut with or without an N".
I believe the natives have been taught a tad too well.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
In touch with Culture
The first few months in a place, there is the rush to boast to the fellow stay-at-home natives, the inquisitive relatives and long distant letter receivers that in-between the fag-end cardboard boxes and insurance claims that one has touched base as a Tourist in residence. I am not only a survivor of the cardboard boxes, but I have now to have an in depth knowledge of local culture and monuments to history.
Now months later the agenda has changed, I am a resident with my picture on an ID card, that I may not have voted 'for' in the Homeland security debate as it was an invasion of my privacy. I am a turncoat radical persuaded by "they" - the local bureaucracy ~ that may be looking for an excuse to send me home - they do not understand my objections to infringements of civil liberty and I think by sign language they do not care. They want me to have an ID card. I want an ID card.
Now we have the plans at the ready to receive Visitors , the tour is reduced to a fast turnaround of local antiquities or theme parks of what looks like old antiquities.....we are hosting visitors. There is an expectation of the holidayers, they want a rush to visit the local visit places that one as a resident should now know the best back-alley snack bar like the back of my hand. Visitors knowing that I will give the Visitor a true taste of foreign lands. And By schucks McDonaldini's not going to cut the ice.
The back of my hand is gloved.
Now months later the agenda has changed, I am a resident with my picture on an ID card, that I may not have voted 'for' in the Homeland security debate as it was an invasion of my privacy. I am a turncoat radical persuaded by "they" - the local bureaucracy ~ that may be looking for an excuse to send me home - they do not understand my objections to infringements of civil liberty and I think by sign language they do not care. They want me to have an ID card. I want an ID card.
Now we have the plans at the ready to receive Visitors , the tour is reduced to a fast turnaround of local antiquities or theme parks of what looks like old antiquities.....we are hosting visitors. There is an expectation of the holidayers, they want a rush to visit the local visit places that one as a resident should now know the best back-alley snack bar like the back of my hand. Visitors knowing that I will give the Visitor a true taste of foreign lands. And By schucks McDonaldini's not going to cut the ice.
The back of my hand is gloved.
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Seeing is believing
Just passing through... it may be the most wondrous statue in Christiandom, but I am not a Tourist. The postcard granduer of a nth wonder of the world appears smudged in a taxi window that is cricking your neck a tad too much to be worth the pain. And anyway there is business at hand, doing the deal, answering the queries with the right degree of knowledge and charm.
Can one be forgiven ... blind to things beautiful. And also blind to things not beautiful but functionally required to survive the Ex-pat day on a business tour. In an hotel room and the mind is exasperated at finding the hotel bathroom is missing a tissue or indeed tissue dispenser. My nose is a like a flowing river, a waterfall that Tourists might want to see. Where is that tissue dispenser, I have a nose to blow. The hotel room is not the only thing missing essential items. I also appear to have missed an eye test; as within several minutes it, the tissue dispenser is found right where it would be expected to be. I am growing old.
Old and now about to enter the danger zone the shower facility. Facing up to the metallic tubular junior version of the Hadron Collider, let alone mastering it, let alone actually getting clean without rupturing a spleen, this engineering challenge was not on my hotel bathroom agenda as I started my ablutions, yet here I face the executive torture chamber with a wish to have a simple bath, is defied by a multi-point massager tri-point axis max-power shower with a big red button marked "super-hot". It is a challenge. It is a brain teaser. I am old. I do not want a physical endurance test. I want a simple wash. My brain is being teased. This is sudoku by Meccano.
I can truly forgive myself in having an university education and that it still did not prepare me for things with more knobs than a rugby team post game shower. This is a parallel universe for the nerdshow - this is walk on the wild side of geek street. Designer shower and the Designer has gone wild, he's gone bleedin' mad. A Designer renegade from some Theme Park, where this shower would probably be called the Waterfall Xtreme and I should be able to goto the hotel lobby and buy a "I survived the Waterfall Xtreme". In this theme park ride, I am stark naked, I am not surviving the ride.
Or perhaps, my mistake, this is the hotel tanning machine for whitey Europeans to step-out with a local look in minutes and winner of the innovation award for design for best tan without use of environmentally harmful chemicals. Tanning by reddening and its probably called "The Beetroot Xtreme". Perhaps I may be treating the subject matter a little too lightly, there is a risk of Death ....Death by third degree burns of the Ex-pat by this super charged Shower - "The Widowmaker Xtreme".
It is not so wonderful after the near death experience and the severe bruising of a ribcage that may be require bandaging,... that I find my nano-second usage of said shower is now defined as a causal effect.... the final coup de grace, .....I find I have flooded the bathroom, the waters are threatening the bedroom; or to be correct in any police or insurance testimony that I may be required to give; it has caused the flooding. This is embarrassing. The cleaners may think I have a serious bladder problem but this is a Biblical proportions bladder. I am afraid exotic animals in pairs are going to turn up shortly and call me Noah or should that be Doolittle. Forget the complimentary tissues, I want the complimentary sandbags, are they hiding by the tissue dispenser.
Is this the Hotel from Hell revenge for those rockstar guests who do not appreciate hotel rooms are better with TVs and pavements are better without.
Now, I am afraid to turn on the TV for fear of surround sound, mega light four pixel glare, besides the fear of water ingression and explaining a broken TV without contact to a nearby pavement on the Expenses form. And I mop up the flood with my non-complimentary towels.
Can one be forgiven ... blind to things beautiful. And also blind to things not beautiful but functionally required to survive the Ex-pat day on a business tour. In an hotel room and the mind is exasperated at finding the hotel bathroom is missing a tissue or indeed tissue dispenser. My nose is a like a flowing river, a waterfall that Tourists might want to see. Where is that tissue dispenser, I have a nose to blow. The hotel room is not the only thing missing essential items. I also appear to have missed an eye test; as within several minutes it, the tissue dispenser is found right where it would be expected to be. I am growing old.
Old and now about to enter the danger zone the shower facility. Facing up to the metallic tubular junior version of the Hadron Collider, let alone mastering it, let alone actually getting clean without rupturing a spleen, this engineering challenge was not on my hotel bathroom agenda as I started my ablutions, yet here I face the executive torture chamber with a wish to have a simple bath, is defied by a multi-point massager tri-point axis max-power shower with a big red button marked "super-hot". It is a challenge. It is a brain teaser. I am old. I do not want a physical endurance test. I want a simple wash. My brain is being teased. This is sudoku by Meccano.
I can truly forgive myself in having an university education and that it still did not prepare me for things with more knobs than a rugby team post game shower. This is a parallel universe for the nerdshow - this is walk on the wild side of geek street. Designer shower and the Designer has gone wild, he's gone bleedin' mad. A Designer renegade from some Theme Park, where this shower would probably be called the Waterfall Xtreme and I should be able to goto the hotel lobby and buy a "I survived the Waterfall Xtreme". In this theme park ride, I am stark naked, I am not surviving the ride.
Or perhaps, my mistake, this is the hotel tanning machine for whitey Europeans to step-out with a local look in minutes and winner of the innovation award for design for best tan without use of environmentally harmful chemicals. Tanning by reddening and its probably called "The Beetroot Xtreme". Perhaps I may be treating the subject matter a little too lightly, there is a risk of Death ....Death by third degree burns of the Ex-pat by this super charged Shower - "The Widowmaker Xtreme".
It is not so wonderful after the near death experience and the severe bruising of a ribcage that may be require bandaging,... that I find my nano-second usage of said shower is now defined as a causal effect.... the final coup de grace, .....I find I have flooded the bathroom, the waters are threatening the bedroom; or to be correct in any police or insurance testimony that I may be required to give; it has caused the flooding. This is embarrassing. The cleaners may think I have a serious bladder problem but this is a Biblical proportions bladder. I am afraid exotic animals in pairs are going to turn up shortly and call me Noah or should that be Doolittle. Forget the complimentary tissues, I want the complimentary sandbags, are they hiding by the tissue dispenser.
Is this the Hotel from Hell revenge for those rockstar guests who do not appreciate hotel rooms are better with TVs and pavements are better without.
Now, I am afraid to turn on the TV for fear of surround sound, mega light four pixel glare, besides the fear of water ingression and explaining a broken TV without contact to a nearby pavement on the Expenses form. And I mop up the flood with my non-complimentary towels.
Friday, 19 March 2010
Resident by Schooling
We moved so often, having experiences for the better or worst, one day a child may tell me, as he or she fails to deliver a commode on time, that it was not the best of childhoods to be given, relocating for the euro-dollar. So now a decison is made, career sacrificed for what may be normality and fears that the kid may change his natioanlity if we stay too long.
Stability searched for and is given a try, as an anchor is thrown over board in a foreign land, a laying of my wherever hat, I am doing the right thing by the kids. But oh but, but it was like pitching up a tent in the dark and hoping it was not sitting on a snakepit, this stability, this place to be called home. In the morning you realise, of course, the tent had no floor of snakes, it was only spiders. Spiders!
Domestic priorities have won over career, wins over standing up for your love rights with "the Man" from the wrong side of management theory. And that sacrifice hurts, doffing a cap means buying a cap and handkerchief to wipe the tears from my eyes. I am becoming a resident of a foreign land, a resident in order that the school can be remembered in its every nook and cranny.
A school that may not be that brilliantly good, that may be full of artistic achievement, that may be brilliant in academic over-achievement, we only had two weeks to decide; but it was the single school that accepted the foreign language kids.
And a school built of brick and mortar that is staying put just like the kids.
Stability searched for and is given a try, as an anchor is thrown over board in a foreign land, a laying of my wherever hat, I am doing the right thing by the kids. But oh but, but it was like pitching up a tent in the dark and hoping it was not sitting on a snakepit, this stability, this place to be called home. In the morning you realise, of course, the tent had no floor of snakes, it was only spiders. Spiders!
Domestic priorities have won over career, wins over standing up for your love rights with "the Man" from the wrong side of management theory. And that sacrifice hurts, doffing a cap means buying a cap and handkerchief to wipe the tears from my eyes. I am becoming a resident of a foreign land, a resident in order that the school can be remembered in its every nook and cranny.
A school that may not be that brilliantly good, that may be full of artistic achievement, that may be brilliant in academic over-achievement, we only had two weeks to decide; but it was the single school that accepted the foreign language kids.
And a school built of brick and mortar that is staying put just like the kids.
Friday, 12 March 2010
You will be my friend
Nods have been exchanged, eyebrows raised an half inch, a quick side step was made to avoid bodily contact at the "turning of the corner incident at the airport". Blushes were saved and unwarranted rumours of 'boys will be boys' on Monday in the typing pool avoided. Typing Pool I am so ..oooh... 80's.
Now we are travellers together forced into a voyage of mutual discovery, at the beginning we will talk about the job, the weather, the football, I hope, the family or lack of, gradually moving onto the wonderful dinner, the quality of the hotel room, and at the end we may be bosom friends having laughed at a common cause, or perhaps we may nod a goodbye and shake a hand and hope the project never happens or at least not with him or me ~these feelings can be mutual.
A project failing on inner personal chemistry. Business is not always business.
Now we are travellers together forced into a voyage of mutual discovery, at the beginning we will talk about the job, the weather, the football, I hope, the family or lack of, gradually moving onto the wonderful dinner, the quality of the hotel room, and at the end we may be bosom friends having laughed at a common cause, or perhaps we may nod a goodbye and shake a hand and hope the project never happens or at least not with him or me ~these feelings can be mutual.
A project failing on inner personal chemistry. Business is not always business.
Friday, 5 March 2010
The Universal Dictionary
And what did the Romans give us? straight roads, a dead language and probably an inferiority complex, not that I am a psychiatrist. The straight roads at least have ups and downs which I can verify from my 800ccc Mini days, them were the days when I could admire an open road as thousands admired my rear bumper. The Romans gave us a dead language and contaminated a fair few other languages with their conquering and pillaging. Being on the pillaged side allowed the natives to be gracious losers and so accept a lot in life as a butt-end of inferiority complex. It is humbling.
And the good news from this language of lawyers and medical students is ....
So with a good stab at an accent pronouncing a 'w' as 'v' or a 'll' as 'y', depending on where the airport leaves your hat. I can say 'introduction', 'reduction', 'production', 'such and such-tion' and be cheered as a natural in a European tongue. 'Et tu-ing' with the best of them, or did I just say "did you just ate two". Sadly I have a feeling my ribcage now looks like a rack looking for a knife to the hungry neighnourhood canibal who would have been satisfied with a porkchop. The local Brutuses are apparently not taken in by my easy charm and dyed-in-the-wool dialect. May be my 'how to speak a foreign language' theory needs some iteration, before the "Learn Freutschish in 9 days" Book deal is signed. Maybe I need to shrug a bit more, stare wildly and make garruff noises. I believe the Book deal may be superseded by the DVD package.
Or perhaps my theory in practice on the streets of Freutschishland may prove me wrong as a Brit throaty noises may not translate without spitting, the next post may involve hospitals or hospitalisation as I should say.
Saturday, 27 February 2010
Chimney sweeping
Cost of living is a thing that can hurt the ex-pat purse, one has little expenses that one does not expect: take international schooling and sometimes the Company pays if you are lucky, free schooling unfortunately does not extend to subsidised presents to the millionaire peer group chidren, one has to fund extravagant gifts. International children present giving is channelled in expectations of not looking poor despite the rapid loss of finances as health bills, language classes, tax experts make the salary look decidedly scary.
My reward for putting bratwurst, gulash, on the table, my reward are children now called teenagers wanting to shout their understandings on society's injustice which due to physical contact is addressed at the nearest parent that why their human rights are being abused and that boils down to their right in a democracy that they have a right to sit in the big chair occasionally. It appears expressing their right to be left-wing, is sadly only resolved by an iPod. Capitalsim can be embraced and so perhaps its time to send the kiddies to modern equivalent of chimney sweeping. Entreprenuership and poverty is better appreciated with a blackened face and a 70% lung capacity.
My reward for putting bratwurst, gulash, on the table, my reward are children now called teenagers wanting to shout their understandings on society's injustice which due to physical contact is addressed at the nearest parent that why their human rights are being abused and that boils down to their right in a democracy that they have a right to sit in the big chair occasionally. It appears expressing their right to be left-wing, is sadly only resolved by an iPod. Capitalsim can be embraced and so perhaps its time to send the kiddies to modern equivalent of chimney sweeping. Entreprenuership and poverty is better appreciated with a blackened face and a 70% lung capacity.
Economic crisis is driving me down in the external world could be remedied by a salary hike ~ho hum~ and a wall of teenage angst in the internal domesticity is not remedied by pocket money ~ho hum. Pocket money I can ill afford. Time for church on Sunday if I can avoid the collection. Tschucks.
Saturday, 20 February 2010
Cultural Divide Conquering
Pop X-idol dancing on shice Factor Top Model. i am going native big time I am watching the local version of Rock goes to the Olympics. Popularity is measured not only by octaves but by a personality count.
I am a becoming a Saddo and by each cruel week a culturally adept saddo, I can parlez, hablar, sprechen pronounced shprekken with the best of them.... I have become genuinely interested how Marie, Pablo and Heinz are holding their own against turgid opposition to become the nation's favourite and yes, having lost a pet lamb at six years old will get you that extra phone vote especially if you cry... damn it ...only if you cry.
Each 30 second documentary lists each would-be star as sympathetically as one can between the smiles and pleading 'please call' for me, 'vote for me', because if I cannot sing well, I smile, I am a single mother, I am a good dad, I fresh faced urchin who could rival a US star but I speak your language and I come from your region. Politics have gone wild, popularity by screeching is about to begin.
Singing starts and cultural cross over is reversed. This foreign extravaganza is a sign of how English has conquered the world better than the sword or pen, as local teenagers expand lungs and largely murder some English formerly good ballad, in front of a panel of 'has been', 'might still bees' and 'never wazzes', the 'Good, the Bad and the Urgh' judges sit in judgement espousing probable good, bad and 'do not care' critiques that I fail to understand but by the general boo-ing were equivalent to epitaphs.
X factor as a langauge learning curve - an educational tool - it has some purpose in my cultural-crossing madness. And I can murmur some trivia on Monday with work colleagues with a knowing nod.
And I seem to care as a telephone duly pockets my money. A television programme has assumed a point of unnatural importance in my life...Oh je as the locals say.
I am a becoming a Saddo and by each cruel week a culturally adept saddo, I can parlez, hablar, sprechen pronounced shprekken with the best of them.... I have become genuinely interested how Marie, Pablo and Heinz are holding their own against turgid opposition to become the nation's favourite and yes, having lost a pet lamb at six years old will get you that extra phone vote especially if you cry... damn it ...only if you cry.
Each 30 second documentary lists each would-be star as sympathetically as one can between the smiles and pleading 'please call' for me, 'vote for me', because if I cannot sing well, I smile, I am a single mother, I am a good dad, I fresh faced urchin who could rival a US star but I speak your language and I come from your region. Politics have gone wild, popularity by screeching is about to begin.
Singing starts and cultural cross over is reversed. This foreign extravaganza is a sign of how English has conquered the world better than the sword or pen, as local teenagers expand lungs and largely murder some English formerly good ballad, in front of a panel of 'has been', 'might still bees' and 'never wazzes', the 'Good, the Bad and the Urgh' judges sit in judgement espousing probable good, bad and 'do not care' critiques that I fail to understand but by the general boo-ing were equivalent to epitaphs.
X factor as a langauge learning curve - an educational tool - it has some purpose in my cultural-crossing madness. And I can murmur some trivia on Monday with work colleagues with a knowing nod.
And I seem to care as a telephone duly pockets my money. A television programme has assumed a point of unnatural importance in my life...Oh je as the locals say.
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Accidental Diet
It was one of those days, where the bed has wrong sides and my hair is bad. An executive abroad brought down to a ceramic earth. Brave attempts of grinning and bearing to hide the bum-clenching and whispered swearing. Enough is enough, I am ill, I am erupting internally and it is threatening to go external, to go to trouser-side. I ask to go home. Home is a hotel room. Work is ceded to the recovery room... to the uptown, cross-town hotel.
I am driven across down-town traffic, where the normally F1 driver chauffeur is taking it easy, he has been told I am ill.
I want speed damn it, otherwise a non-odourless car feature will not be welcomed. Each corner normally adventured as if white water rafting, is patiently waited. Damn it man - speed. Each junction is stopped at. Damn it, I could run there faster, indeed in this present moment Usain Bolt may not be able to compete with me and a rocket-fuelled bum. I could be an Olympian, albeit with a probable risk of diqualification, as it may be a tad suspect my ability to spray fellow competitors in a tangy substance. And one suspects the clearing of all bodily fluids may be a conversely reveal a suspicious lack of drugs in my body, since all is about to be expunged via a choice of orifices.
Hotel is reached, a lift with a non functioning lift key is secured to an upwards direction, eventually. A Hotel room awaits to host my misery. Dirty deeds are to be done.
I have probably become as close to a ceramic toliet and/or sink as is humanly possible without investigation by the decency police, in many countries this level of closeness to a toilet is probably illegal without some form of protection.
Vomit, I have not vomited for twenty years and thirty years without the aid of alcohol. This is a record. Mini-bar Energy drink is drunk to replace blood sugar and is now blood-sugaring the sink in seconds, with an after-burn to the tonsils that is not the best and not to mention the burning of the wallet at these prices. All those gym exercises come back to haunt as stomach hardened muscles retch with fifty sit-up power.
Recovery brings elation on a scale that befits, at a personal level, an equivalence probably to the joy of the first Man landing on the moon, "Houston the rocket propulsion has gone solid, this one small stool for a bum and one giant soup for lunch-time".
Today is one of those days of wishes - I wish that hadn't hapenned and is rounded off by another faux pas - a phone rings and a chirpy pretence of interest, the local man inquires if I am Ok?, do I need anything?, I can now legitimately complain by invitation. I have a listener to my lonely existence, that my Joints ache, I say 'I could do with a massage, I am as stiff as a board', but this can lead to mis-interptretation in certain countries and things I wish I had not said.
I am driven across down-town traffic, where the normally F1 driver chauffeur is taking it easy, he has been told I am ill.
I want speed damn it, otherwise a non-odourless car feature will not be welcomed. Each corner normally adventured as if white water rafting, is patiently waited. Damn it man - speed. Each junction is stopped at. Damn it, I could run there faster, indeed in this present moment Usain Bolt may not be able to compete with me and a rocket-fuelled bum. I could be an Olympian, albeit with a probable risk of diqualification, as it may be a tad suspect my ability to spray fellow competitors in a tangy substance. And one suspects the clearing of all bodily fluids may be a conversely reveal a suspicious lack of drugs in my body, since all is about to be expunged via a choice of orifices.
Hotel is reached, a lift with a non functioning lift key is secured to an upwards direction, eventually. A Hotel room awaits to host my misery. Dirty deeds are to be done.
I have probably become as close to a ceramic toliet and/or sink as is humanly possible without investigation by the decency police, in many countries this level of closeness to a toilet is probably illegal without some form of protection.
Vomit, I have not vomited for twenty years and thirty years without the aid of alcohol. This is a record. Mini-bar Energy drink is drunk to replace blood sugar and is now blood-sugaring the sink in seconds, with an after-burn to the tonsils that is not the best and not to mention the burning of the wallet at these prices. All those gym exercises come back to haunt as stomach hardened muscles retch with fifty sit-up power.
Recovery brings elation on a scale that befits, at a personal level, an equivalence probably to the joy of the first Man landing on the moon, "Houston the rocket propulsion has gone solid, this one small stool for a bum and one giant soup for lunch-time".
Today is one of those days of wishes - I wish that hadn't hapenned and is rounded off by another faux pas - a phone rings and a chirpy pretence of interest, the local man inquires if I am Ok?, do I need anything?, I can now legitimately complain by invitation. I have a listener to my lonely existence, that my Joints ache, I say 'I could do with a massage, I am as stiff as a board', but this can lead to mis-interptretation in certain countries and things I wish I had not said.
Sunday, 7 February 2010
Happy Snappers
Digital cameras and Happy Snappers smell disasters. It would be aswell, if they, this breed of evolved Trainspotters, restricted their exploits to the obligatory site record photography inbetween the cement batching, erected steelwork, panoramic view of a soon to be brand spanky new shopping complex, sadly now a big muddy hole that resembles a very big muddy hole; although one knows that happy snapper will think it appropriate to lace his photomontage with the beer-bellied son of a weightlifter, in trousers that may have fitted two years ago..... and now shows the world that bending and soft-porn is reality on a jobsite and the civil engineers has a choice of cracks to write up in the site report.
But the Happy Snapper's real crime awaits.
Later..... I am caught by the man who would be a still camera legend, knowing that mastery of a digital still beats talking to his colleagues, team building is for teams and happy snapper is a loner, I am caught in a fleeting moment of evening revelry where lighting, camera angles, blurring, cast a moment of doubt that one has been hard at it for the previous forty-seven hours.Camaraderie captured by the digitally small handheld. Team Camaraderie is like milk split by Happy Snapper Camareree and the boss will think the milk looks like beer.
And one knows happy snappers know how to cc accidentally to the department and bccc'd to the Directors without a squirm of a squirming smile
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Return of the Hunter Gatherers
The battle of alpha male adventurers determined to lock horns and be damned with the consequences, a modern day duel by your weapon of choice - the back stabber, which in most cases resorts to a carefully written E-mail that needs bold font for the lines in between. An E-mail to be cc'd to a discerning audience and bcc'd to the 'et tu Brutuses' awaiting the rise of the new alpha male in this empire of coffee machine macho-dom. Let the Macchiavelies and their Latte Machiattos be released. The blood will be spilt in the executive lounge amongst the coffee stains.
Fisticuffs avoided by a well honed sarcasm. Blood not let by a carefully tasteless memo. The duel is to be settled in executive meetings - the foreigner, the local, the tweed suit, the shiny chic casual smart. Carefully worded statements of understandings of meeting are lost in English that would need a dictionary to explain to the best translator, the potential misunderstandings inherent in its subtlety innbetween the "it is considers, taking on boards, the I believes, with due notices, all things reconsiders". The Battle lines are drawn, each man chooses his weapon: the ex-pat with his mother tongue nuance and over statement, an international breast beater CV; and his opponent knowing of the local quirks and a second tongue and precision of understanding of the second language and a masterly understatement 'you are wrong, you are incorrect, you are not making sense'. And the winner is ..... depends on the audience. Jokes that fall to earth of the non-native speaker, jokes well received by the foreign legion. Let their neurosis be fed by the caffeine.
The Management Theory books should have a the "hidden track" - how to drink coffee and win.
Fisticuffs avoided by a well honed sarcasm. Blood not let by a carefully tasteless memo. The duel is to be settled in executive meetings - the foreigner, the local, the tweed suit, the shiny chic casual smart. Carefully worded statements of understandings of meeting are lost in English that would need a dictionary to explain to the best translator, the potential misunderstandings inherent in its subtlety innbetween the "it is considers, taking on boards, the I believes, with due notices, all things reconsiders". The Battle lines are drawn, each man chooses his weapon: the ex-pat with his mother tongue nuance and over statement, an international breast beater CV; and his opponent knowing of the local quirks and a second tongue and precision of understanding of the second language and a masterly understatement 'you are wrong, you are incorrect, you are not making sense'. And the winner is ..... depends on the audience. Jokes that fall to earth of the non-native speaker, jokes well received by the foreign legion. Let their neurosis be fed by the caffeine.
The Management Theory books should have a the "hidden track" - how to drink coffee and win.
Friday, 29 January 2010
In the name of ...common sense
U2 anthems aside and outside taking the Lord's name in vain, there is something faintly chilling about a nervous anxiety of the seasoned international traveller to be at the front of a queue.
I am in an airport and I am the male of the species in his domain, here I am an expert, I know the rules, the quickest queue to get a stamp to prove I was been there and done that-whatever-ing.
But today I have the granny from hell who fetches all things from her bag except the paper she should have filled in outside and I know, dear Lord, I know when and if she one day finds her paper it will be incomplete and she will need her glasses to read it, glasses lost in a taxi, she will need a pen that will have no ink. And I by executive turns have lost my humanity, by spin of management speak I have lost humility, forgotten a sense of being nice, a sense this could be Mam lost in a purse and equally lost in time, I have lost a sense of common sense.
I am unnecessarily going too fast on this world, growing old without noticing the wrinkles, without external slow-down signs like birthday cards; living in a bubble of self inflicted pangs of hurrying-up. I am my own victim, a corpse awaiting the pain, a man condemned to an internal sign - a heart attack or such like.
I am in an airport and I am the male of the species in his domain, here I am an expert, I know the rules, the quickest queue to get a stamp to prove I was been there and done that-whatever-ing.
But today I have the granny from hell who fetches all things from her bag except the paper she should have filled in outside and I know, dear Lord, I know when and if she one day finds her paper it will be incomplete and she will need her glasses to read it, glasses lost in a taxi, she will need a pen that will have no ink. And I by executive turns have lost my humanity, by spin of management speak I have lost humility, forgotten a sense of being nice, a sense this could be Mam lost in a purse and equally lost in time, I have lost a sense of common sense.
I am unnecessarily going too fast on this world, growing old without noticing the wrinkles, without external slow-down signs like birthday cards; living in a bubble of self inflicted pangs of hurrying-up. I am my own victim, a corpse awaiting the pain, a man condemned to an internal sign - a heart attack or such like.
Friday, 22 January 2010
Flu as I flew
Catching flu before a Business trip is not good, especially if there is hint of Swine Flu mania in the air. Last year a few coughs, fuzzy head and catarrh on a Richter scale would have simply been called it a heavy cold. This year pandemics is the new word of the year, or perhaps it is a year of the word like "tsunamis" entering the public concept, "hung" applying to parliaments as well.
So worries are to be faced as international travel is contemplated and the stares identify me as a leper among my people.
My pressing concerns are different I am ill and will my ears pop as a backside poops, God forbid. A body heat temperature that could seriously affect the airplane's temperature comfort settings. But by damn there is a meeting that needs saving in Outer Guadalupe or whatever the E-ticket says. Damn the fear of sitting long hours on a plane with a head like a brick, a bottom with a brick and a stomach that is sick.
Arrival and survival. I crave food after starving myself on the eternal flight. I am renewed, a survivor in needs of sustenance. The brick needs replacing. I am adventurer by damn.
And then by a fine choice of local cuisine, damn the risk of spice fuelled vomit accelerant diguised as spicy pasta, this food is accepted as part of cultural integration. A plane trip is forgotten. A plane trip is remembered as consequences to this cultural food consumption comes as integral to my ex-pat life as a local toilet seat. Pass the toilet paper, consierge.
By the God of all things anal, I cannot stop bodily functioning, but I cannot stop going - a meeting depends on me. Brown suits should make a comeback, and I am borrowing the pot pourri jar Mr Hiltarriot Hotel.
And so I soldier on and one never learns or in fact, to be correct, one temporarily learns and then permanently forgets until this time.
So worries are to be faced as international travel is contemplated and the stares identify me as a leper among my people.
My pressing concerns are different I am ill and will my ears pop as a backside poops, God forbid. A body heat temperature that could seriously affect the airplane's temperature comfort settings. But by damn there is a meeting that needs saving in Outer Guadalupe or whatever the E-ticket says. Damn the fear of sitting long hours on a plane with a head like a brick, a bottom with a brick and a stomach that is sick.
Arrival and survival. I crave food after starving myself on the eternal flight. I am renewed, a survivor in needs of sustenance. The brick needs replacing. I am adventurer by damn.
And then by a fine choice of local cuisine, damn the risk of spice fuelled vomit accelerant diguised as spicy pasta, this food is accepted as part of cultural integration. A plane trip is forgotten. A plane trip is remembered as consequences to this cultural food consumption comes as integral to my ex-pat life as a local toilet seat. Pass the toilet paper, consierge.
By the God of all things anal, I cannot stop bodily functioning, but I cannot stop going - a meeting depends on me. Brown suits should make a comeback, and I am borrowing the pot pourri jar Mr Hiltarriot Hotel.
And so I soldier on and one never learns or in fact, to be correct, one temporarily learns and then permanently forgets until this time.
Tuesday, 19 January 2010
Ex-pat at the Ready
Like any good boy scout has his dib-dib-dobs ready to sing ging-gang-goolying sing-songs at drop of a dibble or was it a dobble. Visa requirements checked, foreign currency check. So the international traveller has at the ready the toiletry bag sitting firmly near the passport, ready to go adventuring. Pen knife at the ready is placed in hold luggage for fear of being taken as an international terrorist. Luggae chosen from an array of suitable suitcases to suit each overnight, 3 day, week, month excursion like a series of Russian dolls.
I an ex-pat doing my thing.
Plastic bag of specially sized stuff that can pass customs muster computer readied to be individually beaten to a metaphorical x-rayed pulp.
Coins pushed into the special briefaces pocket, I am executive armed to do business. Blow-up cushion has been bought but not really used because it never really helped the jetlag- resistant sleep.
I am ready to go at the drop of the hat. And did I see my boss drop a hat, I am ready to go sir.
X-ray machine walk of shame completed with apomb, without a beep, without any eyebrow being raised, without a body scan being troubled, without a frisk that is a tad too close to telling which side of the bed you got out of.
Once there in some climate that has been anticipated like a telephoning Superman, an executive metamorphed into the local version, be that tie not used, jacket causally drawn over shoulders like a cape. At home whatever the weather.
Once there Taxi receipts requested in multiple tongues, restaurant receipts checked, cashpoint commission receipts are pushed into pockets, wallets and rescued nightly to be processed eventually by a secretary to avoid cash flow problems. Account checked on the notebook - laptop-computer in the hotel room at an exorbitant 5 star cost to ensure a credit card has not been copied and someone in Australia is buying microwaves at my expense.I an ex-pat doing my thing.
Saturday, 16 January 2010
War zones
Being asked to visit a war zone, or visit a near war zone, or visit a just finished being called a war zone for business reasons is not good. If a bullet has my name on it - stop the bus at the office called Deed Poll. I will be quite happy to complete any 20 page form in triplicate if necessary and please spare the time to send it around a multitude of departments if necessary and unnecessarily delaying my trip. And anyway my old signature has long lost its legibility as three vowels and two consonants have merged into a line. I need a new signature to rediscover my handwriting skillls. Bureaucracy process please do your best delaying worst.
And as a contrast, as a mirror image......Coming home to a war zone is also not good and cannot be talked about so readily, cannot be rejected so easily, it is by action and reaction not avoidable. A family unit in disarray again. It is my fault for not being there.
Single parenting by default. Hormone rages through what used to be a favoured son, putting the diss into dysfunctional family life and Bart Simpson is not merely a cartoon character with good comedic lines but a role model with bad lines. The Crisis management teams are not on call here for re-assurance and 'stay calm' message.
Brushing one's teenage teeth has become a challenge. apparently the not brushing of zellowing teeth is a statement of individuality for this generation, in tandem to the finding an inner self esteem, self image teenage adrenalin rush of arguining over flossing teeth has replaced glue sniffing. It is a symbol of resistance - a Rebel with a Cause called Dental Un-Hygiene. A favoured son with dentures in his mid thirties, whilst he is thinking I am only thirteen. I may need to hum.
And as a contrast, as a mirror image......Coming home to a war zone is also not good and cannot be talked about so readily, cannot be rejected so easily, it is by action and reaction not avoidable. A family unit in disarray again. It is my fault for not being there.
Single parenting by default. Hormone rages through what used to be a favoured son, putting the diss into dysfunctional family life and Bart Simpson is not merely a cartoon character with good comedic lines but a role model with bad lines. The Crisis management teams are not on call here for re-assurance and 'stay calm' message.
Brushing one's teenage teeth has become a challenge. apparently the not brushing of zellowing teeth is a statement of individuality for this generation, in tandem to the finding an inner self esteem, self image teenage adrenalin rush of arguining over flossing teeth has replaced glue sniffing. It is a symbol of resistance - a Rebel with a Cause called Dental Un-Hygiene. A favoured son with dentures in his mid thirties, whilst he is thinking I am only thirteen. I may need to hum.
Friday, 8 January 2010
Divorce as a Cultural Necessity
Somehow in learning the local lingo I have fallen behind the learning curve, the expat fraternity advise a mantra to get a girlfriend, however the divorce papers may be somewhat unorthodox and probably unauthorised if reasons for divorce are cited as ~Needed to reach Level B2 in the national language~ please sign the papers.
Classes for foreign langauges have faces of a young generation hardly out of nappies, bumfluff beards hardly hide a scab free complexion. The boys appear to have geographically inspired tattoos as a zit formation maps Italy, as supercharged hormones join the dots with surrounding hills. And like the usual suspect in a police identity parade, the old bloke who shifts uncomfortably in a plastic chair as my colleagues chat about the latest zit cream that does not work, there is an old bloke called me.
The newcomer foreign youngsters pair up, gang up, party up and surpass expectations in exchanging swear words within one weekend party. I am left behind as a brain fails to grasp the simple single future super preterite tense. I still stutter over varying gender of the 'table', 'window', 'curtains', having reflective moments of consciousness on how can things have a gender as if contemplating the theory of relativity. This is not likely to get me a Nobel prize, even if somebody did a translation for me.
Out of the classroom and under instruction to engage the mother tongue community, I am stuttering over guessing what gender a lemonade might be as a waiter stands by the international village idiot, is it a male or a female or by damn a neuter.....and the "Get-by book" index is only an all-fingers-and-thumbs turn page away, but then the waiter puts me out of my misery, misery out of my life by telling me in English that I should be asking for a neutral lemonade and in his impatience, wrapped in sympathy, he puts me off my language learning curve for another decade.
Practise put on the backburner by a waiter needing to earn more than one tip in a night and demonstrating that here they are clever enough to speak a mother tongue and my tongue. Although as my tip to this waiter is sadly short of financial gain, but fill of wordly goodness - "Have a little patience".
As a compensation the the iced-chocolate- crumble-delight cake is ordered in sign language with a cheery eye test for my impatient waiter - "How many middle fingers am I holding up".
Classes for foreign langauges have faces of a young generation hardly out of nappies, bumfluff beards hardly hide a scab free complexion. The boys appear to have geographically inspired tattoos as a zit formation maps Italy, as supercharged hormones join the dots with surrounding hills. And like the usual suspect in a police identity parade, the old bloke who shifts uncomfortably in a plastic chair as my colleagues chat about the latest zit cream that does not work, there is an old bloke called me.
The newcomer foreign youngsters pair up, gang up, party up and surpass expectations in exchanging swear words within one weekend party. I am left behind as a brain fails to grasp the simple single future super preterite tense. I still stutter over varying gender of the 'table', 'window', 'curtains', having reflective moments of consciousness on how can things have a gender as if contemplating the theory of relativity. This is not likely to get me a Nobel prize, even if somebody did a translation for me.
Out of the classroom and under instruction to engage the mother tongue community, I am stuttering over guessing what gender a lemonade might be as a waiter stands by the international village idiot, is it a male or a female or by damn a neuter.....and the "Get-by book" index is only an all-fingers-and-thumbs turn page away, but then the waiter puts me out of my misery, misery out of my life by telling me in English that I should be asking for a neutral lemonade and in his impatience, wrapped in sympathy, he puts me off my language learning curve for another decade.
Practise put on the backburner by a waiter needing to earn more than one tip in a night and demonstrating that here they are clever enough to speak a mother tongue and my tongue. Although as my tip to this waiter is sadly short of financial gain, but fill of wordly goodness - "Have a little patience".
As a compensation the the iced-chocolate- crumble-delight cake is ordered in sign language with a cheery eye test for my impatient waiter - "How many middle fingers am I holding up".
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