» Will you go out with me?

Orange Hat
After several boozy years in Birmingham, I moved back in with my parents in their country village to do my MSc (in order to bury the Desmond under a higher and more successful certificate). Reasons for choosing this location were twofold: it was cheaper to live in the country village and commute to London than to live in London, and two, my mum supplied limitless wine and brandy to "help things along". Great!

Only problem is that this country village had exactly three eligible young ladies. "Eligible" in that they weren't actually married, and "young" as in less than 40, but ladies they weren't. So I tried my hand at internet dating, with no success whatsoever.

Now coming back from my final Final, and with a glorious 5 months left to write and submit the dissertation I arrived home to find all my worldly possessions in the front garden, a removals truck outside the house and my parents gleefully saying, "sold the house, moving to Germany". To be fair, I did know this was on the cards. So a call to my mate A, in London to ask, nay beg, him for the use of his spare room in salubrious Balham.

So moved in, plus internet, I figured rather than delete the dating account I'd just change the search area. *ping* from matching up with 3 sheep and a granny who lied about her age, suddenly there were screens of beauties. None of whom I believed were genuine, so I got on with the important business of making emulsion polymers and thought no more about it.

A few days later, an email lands up. "Message received" it says. It's from a human female. We chatted on messenger. She really was human, really was female, and really was as advertised. You could've knocked me down with a feather (and other cliches).

So we arrange to meet at a pub near a tube station. How will she recognise me? Well, I have this orange Jaegermeister hat I picked up at Sound of Frankfurt the year before - can't miss that.

So I'm standing outside said tube station for ages, nervous with anticipation, my fluorescent orange hat drawing rather odd glances. Possibly if I had a banjo and could play it, I'd have earned a pint. After an hour or so, I realised this one was a no-show.

Hat comes off, springy rim twists and folds up into pocket, and I figure I deserve a pint or six for my troubles.

The pub - I forget the name - was rammed with Sarf Laandaners speaking their strange, foreign dialect and was almost standing room only. Availing myself of a pint I sit in the only available space - at the end of a bench where a rather attractive young lady is being leered over by a somewhat crusty old chap in a faded summery baseball cap.

Time passes, I tune out, the row beside me gets noisier until I politely ask the gent to "shut the fuck up". In the next heartbeat I turn pale: I'm far from my sheltered home, in a pub surrounded by strangers, with a beer head, and I've just told a lumphead to shut it. In the heartbeat after, I realise I'm a foot taller and 20kg heavier than this guy and move around ready for the inevitable. In the heartbeat after, an orange Jaegermeister hat, springy rim straining, bursts free from the pocket with a pleasing *thwock* and comes to settle on my pint.

Suddenly the girl clamps herself to my lips. Turns out this girl was the one I was waiting for. She'd mistaken faded not-orange for bright dayglo orange, dragged this guy over to the pub, then discovered she'd caught a monster.

Shame she was a nutter. Still, passed the time.
(Sun 31st Aug 2008, 14:34, More)

» Will you go out with me?

Middle Kingdom
As a fresh-face, bright-eyed graduate, degree certificate looking bright and clean and free from coffee-rings I landed a job in an engineering firm in the East Midlands. "Yay, great!" I thought, and threw myself into the new job with gusto, thinking that I would be trained and coached and generally guided into the dizzy heights of engineering by wise and sympathetic men. That's what it said would happen in the IChemE manual: how could I doubt that?

Mr Boss, however, had slightly different ambitions. The new company had a plant being built in the Far East and, at this stage of construction just needed bodies out there. The ability to tell one end of a spanner from the other, breath and a pulse were all optional - it was bodies that counted! Having at least two of the three options I was almost over-qualified. So less than three weeks away I set off for Red China.


Now most people on "the China Project", had a local girl. Or two. Or enjoyed the whoring scene with no censure applied, partly because China has manufactured whores since the Tang dynasty and partly because decent people don't go to the sort of bars expat engineers do.

I arrived with excess baggage in tow. I was still embroiled in a four-year on-off relationship with a girl who, for all that I loved her, did her level best to trash my esteem and sense of self at every step. On the side I had a couple of girlfriends who were up for parties and sex and not too interested in "long term"-ness (or so I believed until I tried to end it with one of them, who went completely doolally). So believing that I should try to be a "good man", or at least that I shouldn't complicate my life any more than I already had, I held out longer than most men, but got talking with this local girl who worked in a nearby restaurant where I liked to eat. Over successive nights we talked. Loads. When she wasn't busy she'd come and sit with me just to chat. And we became very good friends.

Ultimately after a number of nights sat on the sofa watching TV and talking until I had to run for the bus to work having never rumpled the bed we admitted we were boyfriend and girlfriend. We had an amazing few months together.

I was strongly advised by colleagues to opt for a clean break on leaving China. She would be broken-hearted for a while, but would recover... perhaps with a healthy caution of expats and a few tales to tell, but recover nonetheless. I was resolute that this was the correct move... but, things flourish in the most unlikely places. As I was in the hotel in Beijing, on an overnight stay before my flight back home, I used the free hotel broadband, and that wonderful system that is Skype, to call her to end it and say a last good bye. The words that actually left my mouth are indelibly etched: "I love you, I can't leave you". I was in hell all day and half the night tearing my own soul in half before making that call. And I'm damn pleased I've made the choice I have.

Anyway, long story short, over the next couple of years I halfway bankrupted myself over flights to China whenever I'd saved enough holiday, extended myself further for the wedding, further still for a decent house, further still for the costs of the UK visas and immigration and all that, and still further to make our life together. We've been married for a little over 2 years and have an amazingly handsome son together...

... and to pay back the gods for making the RIGHT choice for a change, she's in China again with our son, he's learning to speak, but not English, and I'm roasting my bollocks off in Saudi Arabia, building yet another Earth-destroying refinery so that we can afford the "happily ever after".

I hate everything about this 14th century hell-hole, and would crawl down the phone lines to see them, have a hole in my heart every day that I can't hold my son and have 3 more weeks to wait for my vacation when I can.

My wife, though, she's perfect!
(Fri 29th Aug 2008, 9:40, More)

» My most gullible moment

Phone scam
As a child my dad used to play on my trusting innocence of his wisdom with wilful abandon. I'd never quite "got" the art of gulling someone, but, y'know, beginners get lucky sometimes.

------history bit: you can skip this if you like---

My dad and I aren't colleagues but we work in related fields in roughly the same industry, so sometimes our paths cross professionally. Once we even shared office space.

Now he'd worked for this employer several times in the past as a contractor, with a few years interval between contracts. This company was renowned for its generosity, of course. They installed a phone system that requires you to put in a unique PIN before making your call, so they know exactly who makes which call. If the accountants don't think it's a business call, they simply deduct the cost from your wages if you're staff. If you're a contractor, they send you an itemised bill.

At the end of tenure 1, my dad paid his bill and left. On starting tenure 2, they presented him a new phone bill with calls that hadn't been processed before he left. Time lapsed, 3 years. At the end of tenure 2, he paid up, left, returned after 5 years, rinse, repeat. Leaving for the third time he stood over the accountant and demanded she process the calls, issue a final bill, which he paid before he left.

--------end of history----------

Dearest dad made the mistake of telling me about his woes, and his smug feeling at being able to arrive to this place, where with typical efficiency they'll have no desk or computer for him, but at least they won't be waiting with the bill this time.

A poll of the office turns up a contractor's bill for me to copy, add plausible dates and phone numbers, somewhat inflated costs and interest, late fee, handling fee... nothing major, just about £20.

Realising he'd quickly spot a phoney, I go for a chat with The Accountant. It's safe to say she's not lao-daizi's greatest fan, and was more than happy to add a note to say "call me", and play along.

Day of his arrival, letter wends its way through the infernal mail, lands on desk. Within half a second of opening it, the instantly-furious daizi snr is on the phone to She Who Controls The Payroll demanding heads. She plays her part beautifully by feeding him back his own and ended by suggesting, "your son's being here must've set something off. Talk to him." (I'm patched in on the call, handset muted, btw).

Charging into my patch of desk-desert, he just sees me with a shit-eating grin, saying "gotcha"!

/relurk
(Wed 27th Aug 2008, 18:13, More)

» My most gullible moment

Lost in Tlansration
My brother-in-law wants to improve his English. This is great, except that he's a lazy student and only wants to talk about computers. Cue advantage-taking. I gave him about a dozen words, half genuine, half bogus, of which the three best:

USB Memory key = fish soup
Keyboard = flesh organ
Email inbox = Roy Hattersley

What's good is that 1 is a pun on the original language, 3 is a rather too literal translation and 2 should see him exposed to something to make his parents blush.

The computer arrived this morning: T minus 5 days until he's unleashed on the internet for good or for ill...
(Mon 25th Aug 2008, 5:56, More)