Home Once More

Returning from holidays, travelling, whatever, is not a fntastic experience at the best of times. Thoughts of going back to work (unless you're a lazy bum like me who's 'currently between jobs'), the ever awful British weather, and the bills that have piled up in your absence. Luckily though, fate decided this wasn't bad enough for me, and the kindly folk at the airport lost my bag. Twats. That's all I have to say. I would thrill you with many a photograph of my French adventure, but obviously it was in my bag, aswell as many other things. For example, I have no belt. All my trousers are purposefully bought to hang low and so since I've returned I've been baring my arse to the general public. Of course, the kindly airport staff have told me to ring up occassionally to see how the search is going. It didn't fill me with confidence when I rang today to be told that they thought they'd found it. 'Was it a red suitcase because we've found one of them?' No, it was a brown leather over night bag you imbecile as I told the woman who filed the report. I feel my bag is lost forever and I don't think that the Ground Services Manager, a muppet who goes by the name of A.E. Stuart, will be of any help in searching for it. Incidentally, I don't know what the A.E. stands for in his name so any witty suggestions will be duly rewarded.

The Hunt Continues

Don't worry, this isn't a continued diatribe on the lost bag theme. This bit concerns a hunt of a different nature. The hunt for a job. Not only for a job, but for a life, a means to being accepted into this modern day society and to no longer be frowned upon by the economically effective percentage of the population. It's going great, I havve to say. In percentage terms, my applications that have lead to interviews stands at 100%. How good is that hey? Alright, so I've only sent of one application form but the kindly folk at the Environment Agency have given my confidence a boost, as I explained in the last post. Actually, it might be worth bunging in a few terms incase a headhunter is using google to find maverick graduates to work for millions of pounds a minute in the landfill sector, particularly concerning landfill gas and the monitoring thereof. Go on, employ me, you know you want to.

Pokey Poke Poke

Whilst in France I took the time and energy to teach my entire family the joys of Texas Hold 'Em. Unfortunately I could never convince more than three people to play at once but still, at least they have another transferable skill they can add to their CV. I've also discovered that one doesn't need to spend a fortune in casino's across the land to improve poker skills. It's as simple as going to the Ladbrokes poker site and entering the necessaries. I haven't got the balls to play for real money yet, mainly because I'm shit at it, but the day will come when I enter my first competition. Failing success on the job market, I can think of worse careers than professional poker playing. But seriously, it's good fun so check it out if your bored out of your mind and have 3 hours to spare.

Reality Ch ch check

Gone are the days of posts relating to swashbuckling adventure in remote corners of the earth. I'm back. Totally. It's had time to sink in and it's well and truly sunk. Not surprising with all this rain.

I'm looking for a job now, and have got my first interview in October. It's a position with the Environment Agency who, according to a friend in the industry, are 'All a bunch of dicks.' I should fit right in then. Still, at least I've got an interview to go to and it'll be a day out if nothing else.

So now that I've realised that I'm totally back and seeking jobs and looking at houses etc, I'm going away again. Well, you need a holiday before you can tackle all that serious shit, so a week in the South of France should suffice and get me fully prepared for a total assault on the job market when I return.

Interesting question that arose in the pub the other night. In the Olympics, England falls into the classification of being GBR, or Great Britain. Why? We're England in other sports, why do we suddenly get clubbed together with Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales just because it's the Olympics? Any idea anyone?

Whoops!

Silly me. I was in Lao a while ago. Then I went back to Bangkok as I was meeting Phil in Pattaya for one of his company's 'lets get together and get drunk' weekends. I met him in Pattaya and there were hundreds of people there from his company. Indeed, we did get drunk. Funniest moments were the discovery of the new word for Canadians (Canidiots), getting in a Thai boxing ring and having a fight and the 'recovery' breakfast. Anyway, all that malarky lead to the worst CBS Phil or I have ever experienced.

In the fallout my brain must have got confused because somehow in the early hours of Tuesday morning I found myself on a flight to Singapore. Then I must've taken a wrong turn in transit because I was on a flight to London. Bugger! The end of my travels had crept up on me unawares and pounced when I was at my weakest. So I'm back.

I haven't been able to ring anyone because when I found a charger in Lao I got a little over excited and phoned people for far too long. My service provider now tells me that I've gone over my call limit so my phone is barred. I could pay it off............... or wait until I have to pay it off. The latter sounds far more attractive in my book.

British Beek... back on home soil.

P.S. As I look out the window all I can see is grey skies and a faint morning mist hanging about. I love this country but I hate it's weather.

Rubbishness

Indeed I have been a touch rubbish with the old blogger updates. That's purely because I haven't been up to much. I left Vientiane (no job for me... boo!) and caught the train down to Bangkok. Good train journbey all in all. Got talking with one of the guys serving food and drink and ended up playing about six million games of rummy with him. I arrived in Bangkook at about 8 in the morning and was strangely pleased to be back. I took a tuk tuk to Khao San and was shortly displeased to be back. Bangkok is opne of those cities that makes you feel extremely trapped. Hardly anywhere is there any open space and noise from the traffic and pollution just adds to the claustrophobia. So I spent three days there I think (managed to find a guesthouse with a pool on the roof and that offered a kind of getaway) and then decided to come to Pattaya as Phil'll be arriving here on the 22nd. My hopes of being able to lie on the beach and do nothing were pretty much shattered as there's some kind of Thai festival going on here this weekend. The beach road is lined with stalls selling everything imaginable (and some things that were beyond imagination), offering tours, stage shows, the usual things that you'd associate with festival type activity. I think it might have something to do with the queen but I can't be sure and I don't care that much to be honest. They're also having the X-games at the moment so for the last two days I've been watching skating and BMX, inbetween walking up and down looking at the various stalls. Although my beach lazing was shattered, it's been cool just wandering about checking out all the different stuff that's been going on. The time has come for beachness though, so today I'm going to have a look at Jawmthien beach just south of Pattaya. It's meant to be a bit quieter and cleaner and if it's good I'll move in there tomorrow. After that I'll be moving into the Royal Cliff Beach Hotel (or something along those lines) for Phil's arrival on the 22nd. Can't wait to see him again. As for the hotel, I'm sure you can imagine it's a touch flashpackerish, but it's out of the way so it makes sense for me to stay there whilst Phil's there, otherwise we'd have a nightmare trying to meet up. Haha, it's also got a bloody nice pool. Just found this; you can take a virtual tour of the room I'll be staying in if you click http://www.royalcliff.com/ipix/java.asp?javaName=RCLFbch_Mini_Suite_Jav.ipx on that. Take a look at the pools too. Mmm. Lovely.

A Choice of Stories

Right, I've actually nicked this idea off another blog but it serves to purposes. Firstly, it means I'll have some stories left to tell when I get home. Secondly, it get's the interactive thing going. So here's a choice of stories you can have told:

More Scooter Woe~ Driving safety on two wheels in Lao PDR.

Beek, International Reporter ~ Sauna's, networking and job hunting in Lao PDR.

In A Tube ~ Beer, inner tubes, silly behaviour and a new TLA.

That's it. Just put in a comment of the one you'd like to hear most and democracy shall prevail. Depending on the number of votes, i.e. there has to be enough to warrant a tale, the story will appear on the the 11th of this month. Happy voting.

Revoposty

A new batch shall be out shortly. Lao post is safe I have discovered.

Personals

Martha, skirts are en route, let me know when they get there.

Jess, your skirt would be en route but you haven't given me your address yet (yes I know Katy, I'm only teasing her, and you're not shit you're class). Oh and Jess, please define a colour... I've got one already for you but I'm not sure it'll do.

Scroz, your prize is proving hard to find, I think I may have to send you some worthless tourist tat; will that be acceptable?

World leaders, please stop using my blog as forums for diplomatic chat.