Business Traveller

in my experience, there is no surer way of guaranteeing that you’ll end up in the same tourist shitholes as all the other tourists than if you read a guide about the city you are visiting before you arrive.

That’s why i go commando. I visit armed only with a sense of wonder and the firm knowledge that my reciepts can be claimed back as travel expenses.

Normally my strategy works well for me. I get to experience things like the locals do, by asking them where they eat, drink etc.

Unfortunately it sometimes backfires.

Thats how i ended up eating pasta in an italian restaurant in istanbul tonight. Good italian. But i had prepared my taste buds for turkish!

The worst thing about being a business traveller is when you have to keep visiting the same location week in and week out. There is only so much exploring you can do before it loses all it’s foreign charm and becomes just another workplace.

That’s why I’m a happy boy today. I’ve just been told to be in Turkey in a couple of weeks time, and also started discussions about a trip to Kenya.

Never been to either destination, but greatly looking forward to both!

As a business traveller, I obviously spend a large amount of time in cars heading to and from airports.

When in the UK, I use a company that sends a well-dressed person to collect me in an automobile of German origin with a 3 pointed start or blue and white propeller on the bonnet and the number ‘7′ or the letter ‘S’ on the boot.

It’s good on 3 levels. The first is that I don’t have to park my shiny car at the airport where idiots are going to scratch it. The second is that the company pays for it, so it costs me nothing. The third is that I get to pull out my laptop and do some work in the car, or as is the case right now, write random missives on my blog. Last week I spent about 4 hours in their cars, so it’s good that they are comfortable…

Anyway, on to the new pet hate. The nice man that came to collect me today was wearing a neatly pressed 3-piece suit, which I like. He took my bags, and put them in the boot – which I like. He opened the door for me, called me sir, and closed the door behind me again – which I like.

The fucker hasn’t stopped dropping these silent farts that I’m sure he thinks don’t smell – for the entire half an hour that I’ve been in the car now, and doesn’t show any sign of stopping any time soon… That’s my new pet hate!

Recently my company bought a company in India for a lot of money.

This morning I was asked to spend some time with them in July to ensure that they know all about what we are doing technically, and can start to use some of our stuff.

This will be my first trip East, and I can’t wait! I also can’t wait for a proper Indian curry!

Now I just have to remember that the cows are holy, and not dinner…

Spotted at Dusseldorf International Airport – at the metal detectors

I’m on an extended business trip to the US at the moment, taking in meetings with Yahoo! in California and Microsoft in Redmond.

On Saturday night, I finally got to see my first ever baseball game – Oakland A’s vs the NY Yankees. The first surprise for me was how many women there were at the game. I’d say that the split was slightly more women than men.

This lovely lady, and what I think was her son were incredibly friendly, and taught me all about baseball.

One of the really cool things about being at the game was that – for the first time – I got to see a real cross-section of the USA. In addition to all the nice, really friendly (and pretty – I could add) people – there was also a comedy moment when I went to the bathroom.

I swear, it could have come directly from a National Lampoons movie. I was standing in line for the toilet (made me feel like a girl), and was second in line for the next urinal when these 2 rednecks jumped the queue. They were really hyper, and bouncing around, and said ‘We aint waiting in no god damn queue! You got a problem with that boy?’. I tried not to laugh, and that got allot more difficult when one of them punched the cubicle door and said ‘How do you like me now door?’ If only I had a video camera with me at the time!

It was a very quick in-and-out type visit, but I have to say that Prague is on my list of places I’d love to go back to and see more of.

After arriving at 10, I checked into my hotel (The Courtyard Marriot), but I got the wrong one. Apparently there is one in the city centre, and one on the outskirts – wouldn’t you know it – I was on the outskirts. Fortunately taxis ar cheap, and I was in the main square looking for dinner before you could say “Thank god the taxis here aren’t trabents!” (Trabants were made from paper mache, and had a nasty habit of blowing up for no reason…)

Traditional cuisine in Prague appears to be Pizza served with ketchup, but if you do a bit of looking, you can find some very trendy and good restaurants. The waiters manage to make Parisian waiters look polite and responsive, but hey – at least you don’t get dragged off to a Gulag for tipping badly!

Doing the midnight sightseeing was the usual ex-soviet-block game of dodging the prostitutes, who were even more persistent than their colleagues in Budapest, although not quite as pretty.

Rather than bore you with the photo I took of the famous bridge (as featured in XXX and Mission impossible), I thought I’d show you the bar that was 20 meters from the bridge:

Thanks to those fascist pigs in some or other union that want to have a bit of a jolly, I can’t fly to Prague on BA next week, because the mincing little fairies and the air hostesses will be marching around with placards instead of serving me scotch on the rocks.

No, I’ll have to fight for my seat, and sit crammed into a space designed for mutant midgits in a painfully Orange aircraft along with all the moron plebs heading off to Prague for cheap booze and prositututes for their bloody stag do.

If I had my way, unions would all be dragged into the street, and shot.  Repeatedly. With a Large caliber weapon. And Depleted uranium shells…

After months of cooling his heels, the BigGuy was all set for a business trip to Athens on Thursday. I could practically taste the Kleftico and Dolmades. The Ouso hangover was already asserting itself at the mere thought of the trip. I love Athens.

Of course, as fate would have it, I got the flu on Boxing day. According to my hippy Doctor, I also got a secondary bacterial infection sometime after that, meaning that I still have a head that feels like it has been stuffed with contact adhesive, a body that feels as though it has been worked over by a Hungarian crime ring, and a vicious cough.

So here I sit with my Lemsip and my anitbiotics, feeling sorry for myself with my puuppies while those little pricks that work for me enjoy Athens. Bastards. On Monday they’ll want me to approve their expenses too. I may have to scrutinise the contents of those claims more than usual…

On the upside, having a head full of snot and feeling shitty made my boxing day resolution (I’ve given up on new years resolutions – they don’t work) to give up smoking slightly easier. I’m up to 10 days now, and I haven’t killed anybody yet, I just might make it this time…

In 2002 I went through a seriously difficult time in my personal life. At the same time, I was heavily engaged in a project with our Greek company, so I was travelling out to Athens on a weekly basis. Most of the time, I had a colleague with me, which was perfect therapy as we’d go out, drink as much Greek beer, and eat as much Greek food as possible, and then go to a Greek nightclub (working days were a bit hazy).

Unfortunately, when things were worst for me in my personal life, I had to go to Athens alone. This was really bad, because I was moping around, thinking about how bad things were, which is never a good thing. Especially in a country you don’t know. Anyway, there I was moping around the Plaka (The old section of Athens, at the foot of the Acropolis), when this old Greek guy walked up to me and started rattling off in Greek, so I told him I couldn’t speak Greek, and he said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, you look Greek to me’.

I should have known then.

Anyway, he was nice, and he wanted to buy me a drink in his bar, because his wife had family in South Africa, and she wanted to ehar what was happening there, and it was something to do other than mope, so I went.

Inside I immediately knew it was a mistake. The curtains were red velvet. The oil paintings on the wall were badly done sex paintings. The only people in the bar were the guy’s ‘wife’ and a gorgeous little blond number. They escorted me to the bar, and gave me the beer. I figured that I shouldn’t be rude about it, I should have the beer, offer to pay for it, then leave. The 2 women then asked me if I would buy them a cocktail. Again, I figured, what the hell. I’l buy them 1 drink, then I’ll leave.

As I finished my beer, another one appeared, apparently bought for me by the women. So I drank that one, and when they asked me if I would buy them another cocktail, I thought hey, don’t be rude or cause trouble. Just buy the drink, then leave.

Every time I tried to leave, another beer would be opened, and they’d insist that I have just this one. And buy them one. After 4 rounds of this, I figured, OK, I’ll be rude. I said, ‘No more’, and asked for the bill.

Suddenly this stocky little guy with a nose that had been broken more times than the land speed record popped up behind the bar, and – smiling – gave me the bill.

For €400

I asked, politely – I thought, ‘What for 8 drinks?’

He said, ‘You have to pay for the time of the girls too’

I said, ‘I never asked for their time’, and you could just see where this was going.

The conversation started getting allot less polite, and it ended up with 6′2″ of angry South African planting a stocky greek man’s nose in the bar counter 3 or 4 times before leaving the bar.

I was lucky that it was just him, and he was a wimp though. The timing was also perfect because I let off some steam, and was allot less stressed when I got back to England to deal with my personal life.

The reason I mention all of this now is that a guy who used to work for me as a consultant was sent to Budapest on business the other day. A Hungarian pulled a similair stunt on him, but there were more of them, they were meaner, and the price was set at €900. They were threatening to break his legs, but let him go to the bathroom, where he climbed out the window, and tried to use the drain pipie to climb down 3 stories. The drainpipe broke, and he spent weeks in hospital. He’s just been released to finish recovering at home.

Moral of the story, criminals don’t appreciate your good manners. They exploit them. Don’t be polite. Just leave. Trust me.