h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Last conference they sent me to was in Paris in June.

Next week, they're sending me to Calgary. Can't be bad, huh?

The last one I went to was at the hotel next door.

The one before was at a centre 200m away.

I could have gone to one in Plymouth next week, but I'm far too busy and it looks really dull anyway.

Fancy a jobswap?

I'll think it over.

And this very kind offer came in handy today, when colleagues were taking the p*ss :

Colleague : What'll you do if you get offered a job as a lumberjack?
Pin : Don't need it. I already got offered a job by this bloke who runs a hotel in Torquay.

We always clip the prospective staff round the ear at interview, anyway. As long as you respond by yelping in a Spanish accent, you're in!

OK, tomorrow it's Moscow for a week.
Not a conference this time. Something I haven't done for ten years instead, teching up a sales team.
It'll all end in tears, mind. It always does.

Russia's a new one for me, unless you count crossing the border from Finland into Russian Karelia back in 1980. Can't see this visit turning up as memorable an encounter as last time, though : A640559

I guess it's good to see stuff. Can't help feeling nevertheless that there's good things at home I'd rather be doing instead.

I guess I should have asked Solnushka what to do in the evenings. Bit late now...

Moscow .

Tip: if you buy one of those fur hats with the ear flaps tied over the top - make sure it's properly cured.

I'm glad you didn't. Ask I mean. I'd have been forced to admit that I am usless at recommendations. I always made people go sightseeing when they visited to the point where they were too tired to want to do anything in the evening...

Have fun anyway! *slightly jealous*

Didn't get to do much other than work, as it happened

Still, a tempting glimpse of a fascinating city. Must get back there.

In descending order of coolness of this year's paces we now have :

Barcelona
Paris
Moscow (not far behind)

then comes everywhere else, then we finish with

Port Talbot
Calgary
Aberdeen

Moscow would be a fascinating place to visit. Lucky you. I'd put it above Barcelona and Paris. It's more mysterious. Besides, Paris is close enuough for you guys to drive over for coffee.

I really wish I hadn't said that. Now I'm all po'd and jealous again.

Glad you're home safely and had a good time.

I think the shine's gone off the jet-setting.

It's Moscow again, starting with a taxi pick-up in 4 hours time, ie 3 am. So yes, I've decided not to go to bed. (This might have something to do with cricket on telly as well, if I'm honest).

Moscow is going to be bl**dy cold. And if I hear another Polonium joke, somebody'll get hurt.

Back Friday night, and that'll be it for 2006. Or at least it had better be.

It tastes like chicken, apparently.

Hope he packed his ear muffs. And a thermos of cocoa.

Well, I'm home.

I've decided I hate the Dutch, though, so apologies and commiserations to anyone lurking with the misfortune of enduring that woeful nationality.

Reason? On the way back, some pedant confiscated my duty-free vodka at Schipol. This Nonentity ftom the Low Countries seemed to think that the bottle might have been tampered with. I wouldn't have minded so much, but the b*stard didn't even offer up a Geiger counter.

There's always the expense account+duty. So it's reclaimable if the Vodka is avaiable in the the UK. Just think about it Pin. He could have been right.

Hey AB

I guess you heard about Sheffield's most unfortunately-named enterprise?

http://www.poloniumtravel.co.uk/

*Sniggers*

Hey, and if you think the jokes are irritating merely travelling to the Motherland, then you should try actually being Russian.

Hi Solnushka,
It's no joke when you are done out of your duty free. No matter where you are travelling from and who you are travelling with.
For real hardship try being English in a country being overrun by the British.
Ancient Brit

Wo Sol

I think I'll pass on being Russian if that's OK.
As far as I can tell, they all have Marvin tendencies.

Hi AB! I got into trouble last week for getting entangled in my Englands and UKs and Britains and Scotlands and Waleses in a typical Anglocentric way and ended up (accidently) implying that a Welsh person of my acquaintance wasn't British. _Never_ get on the wrong side of a Welsh person in that way, is all I can say. *Shudders*

*Grins at Pin* They do! But imagine how cheerful that makes the rest of us look!

You must understand Solnushka
True Brits are made up True English, True Irish, True Scots and True Welsh and most of them are proud to be true to their own nation.
Sorry Pin you know how I feel.
Ancient Brit