The reason for no further blogs from South Africa

I managed to get the first blog out from Johannesburg but then, on the morning of day 2 I received a rather situation changing telephone call. My on-going contract with Astrium had been terminated, at the end of the week, in three days time. No explanation, no notice period no remorse and certainly no real sympathy. This came in the middle of a rather important meeting and skewed my mind somewhat. I rang my line manager back on-site and received a rather embarrassing, stumbling apology with no real substance or, indeed, sense. The spineless buffoon has ignored the employment situation since he took the job a year or so ago.

I realise now how it is easy to descend into a bitter diatribe towards those who have wronged us but not today, not for me.

Thankfully my exit strategy, the new business that offers communications from any remote location is almost at the point where it could, potentially, support at least one full-time member of staff. I would have preferred another two weeks at least with the safety net of an additional contract but Roger and the monkeys have now made my way forward clear.

With this in mind I have decided to ratchet up the whole approach and to give it a go.

I have a week, or more precisely six days within which I have to secure sufficient business to prevent a catastrophe. I will keep a record of the proceedings in this blog, it may end up as 'car-crash' blogging but alternatively it may be more positive than that.

Planning the next few days has taken some time today and will be completed tomorrow.

I have a lot of balls to throw at a great many coconuts, let's hope I win a fish.

Johannesburg, day 1...and there were sausages...

Ok, I'm not officially on The Sausage Trail but when the day started with a 'light' breakfast, which consisted of scrambled eggs and Boerewors, awesome, my impression of the hotel changed instantly.

Rory ha d texted me early, and I was grateful for that as I had no idea where I was and wanted to get away from the hotel. (Shown below).

We drove to Rory's brother's house. On the way I noted how new all of the offices and show-rooms were on the main motorways. Johannesburg has money coming in, new roads with an even newer and controversial automatic toll system, many big multinational names but still signs of extreme poverty and a large disenfranchised population. Rory and I chatted with Tristan regarding my business goals and the  immediate aims over the next few days. Then we left to meet with their cousin, Stuart and, more importantly the Brai. After chatting with Stu, an IT consultant who helped build the police Tetra network in the UK, and Don, an architect who owns a hotel in Bali, we tucked in to Boerewors., orstrich sausages, lamb chops, massive steaks, excellent potato salad and normal green salad, just a lea fro me. (Stu, left and Tristan, right)

After a few beers and a chat about South African politics and domestic terrorism in the UK we repaired to Tristan's house to talk more business and drink coffee. Before we knew it it was dark and time for me to go. Rory suggested we visit Montecasino, a plush casino complex not far from my hotel.

After an excellent meal of calamari and fillet steak, for only £17 (with two beers) I found a biltong shop, how awesome is that?

On the way back to the car I noticed this...

Thankfully the casino is a 'no gun zone' with a secure 'gun safe' available for those who have the need to leave their weapons prior to gambling. Lot's of guns, lot's of general violence but no gun violence on the scale of the US. Not to worry it was time for a beer and bed.

Night all.

G'port to Jo'burg

20 Hours after I set off I finally have an opportunity to get some words down as I sit on my bed in the rather meagre hotel room in Johannesburg.

It's been some time since I last blogged , probably around the time I last travelled. No sausages this time, although that may not actually be the case after all Boerwors (sp?) cannot be ruled out.

After an early start, how many times have I started with that? After an early start, so early that when I arrived at Heathrow terminal 4 it was still shut, indeed I was the first one through security check for the day which meant two things; first that I had no queue to contend with and second that I had two bloody hours to kill before my flight. Arse.

I'm not going to bore you all with another account of how much long haul travel irritates the beans out of me but I feel that I must post an observation to any Americans who may ever read this; an increase in volume does not mean an increase in humour, loud does not equal funny...nuff said.

No bar at the hotel but a vending machine conveniently located at the end of the ground floor corridor has what I need after a long day.

Cheers.

Who the F*** does Bieber think he is? The little prick.

This is not a band-wagon jumping blog post, but rather an annoyed parent pissed off at spending £300 quid on a ticket for a sub-standard event by a petulant teenager.

Bearing in mind that Jason Bieber is little more than children's entertainer, much like a clown or a Punch and Judy man, why does he think that he can act like a genuine celebrity and come and go on his own schedule. As much as it is a cliche, without his fans he is nothing, as most of them (if not all) are young girls under fifteen he cannot be so thick to not realise that his appearance at the O2 last night (4th March 2013) was not only on a school night but also that a large number of the expectant crowd had to travel some distance. This little idiot threw a tantrum earlier in the week when a night club wouldn't break the law for him so maybe this is pathetic attempt to 'show them' by being late on stage.

I don't doubt that the selfish little oompah-loompah has a modicum of talent in his own 'famous for five minutes' little way, but, in as much the same way as a Big Brother winner has a few days of fame before appearing in Celebrity Big Brother then fading into obscurity, Bieber must realise that without keeping his fans happy their blind adoration will evaporate very quickly so he has to make the most of his hour in the sun.

My neighbour's daughter travelled from Gosport to the concert but had to leave at 2230 in order to catch the last train, Bieber came on stage at 2220. This story is typical of many who attended.

Get a grip on any personal issues young man and do your job!!!

Rant over, Merry Christmas ;-)

Snow, sausages and Chat magazine

Unbelievable. A couple of hours of snow and subsequent light dusting of Gods dandruff leads our intrepid nation to grind to a halt. Perhaps the mothers with 4 x 4 SUVs, purchased for the short school run, are actually justified in their approach, or perhaps not. Every year, in fact every time the weather yields anything other than perfect blue skies and a temperature of between 15 and 16 degrees Celsius, results in carnage on the road, rails and in the skies. Such as this photo of Asda car park yesterday afternoon.


First a quick note on the whole truck thing for the school run, as it really grips my colonic output. The standard school structure is one of multiple infant/primary/junior schools feeding their annual cohort into a smaller number of senior schools. Looking at the size of the catchment area of the schools for the younger kids shows a radius of a few hundred metres on average, this is obviously more pertinent for areas with more dense residential districts so I will use Gosport as an example.

There are at least four infant/primary schools within walking distance of my house, that would be a radius of around half a mile. Yet, every morning the roads choke with parents driving their precious packages to school. There are always exceptions, but most of these lazy idiots can't have more than two or three hundred yards to travel. I constantly argue with Emma on this, this came to point when I downright refused to drive to an assembly at the Junior school for Eddy. My dad relented and drove, I walked, guess who arrived first? I took this picture in the summer of a particularly belligerent mum who was a tad late (I didn't really).

Back to the public transport system. It can hardly be a surprise that at certain times every year the temperature drops and the nature of the precipitation alters into a more solid aspect. We call this Winter and as far as I can tell from my research it has been occurring on a rather regular basis since at lest 1974, it may have happened before this but records are hard to interpret. Most countries with a recurring weather problem tend to plan ahead, so why are we, as a nation fail miserably in this respect. Gritting in advance, around August, would make sense, as would defrosting the railway tracks with some sort of hovering remote controlled laser car, I can't remember if I saw this on telly or dreamt it, it could be both. The moment the Daily Fail reports yet another 'Big Freeze' the public transport, but it's not is it. Perhaps that's the issue, public transport run by private companies, why should they spend any money on upgrading their services for inclement weather conditions? We're used to it. We'll complain but do 'k all about it. Tossers.

Predictably I failed to get much writing done this weekend spending the time instead doing very little and trying to chill out but life conspires against me, forcing the use of cliches and popular soundbites. I shall endeavour to write more next week but another job change looms as does a number of other changes.

On a more positive note, about the only one I have to cling to at the moment, I received a call from Chat magazine for the read back of my article appearing on the 21st February. We took the call in the car, on hands free, so that Emma could listen. On the whole it was well written and sensitively approached, although I doubt that I have ever been bored or indeed watched TV or washed the dishes. Still, it was wonderful to be considered important enough to warrant inclusion in a National magazine.

More tomorrow as this may prove to be a rather busy week.

Celebrities doing shit...how far can this format be stretched?

After watching some of the first instalment of the 'Splash' programme I really despaired and any hope that remained for the resurrection of entertainment on terrestrially available channels on my tell-box was finally shattered. I was even more disappointed when Dom Joly, who I have always considered a writer and broadcaster of decent integrity has recently announced that he is to appear on the show, is there no depths that production companies will sink in an attempt to placate the lowest possible denominator? How prophetic that Steve Coogan's alter ego, Alan Partridge, highlights some outlandish formats and ideas as he desperately tries to save his career at the BBC.

It all seemed so comical and outlandish at the time, but now? Monkey tennis? The whole reality TV approach started off as a bit of a novelty but has been stretched to limits almost parodying the original format. Indeed the idea of normal, (well hardly) members of the general public locked up together in differing circumstances is vaguely entertaining, in as much as the Stanford prison experiment was entertaining for those involved. The 'contestants',  for want of a better description, are not in any way representative of genuine society, aspiring as they do to achieve the elusive status of celebrity without actually having any genuine talent. Indeed, this untalented factor is compounded when those 'kin idiots made famous in a reality show, Made in Chelsea, The only way is Essex and of course Big Brother, appear shortly after as a 'celebrity' in 'celebrity' Big Brother, I'm (not really a) celebrity get me out of here and now Splash.

I feel that I must say, that beyond a brief and critical view of these programmes I try my absolute hardest to avoid them, sometimes with little success as the media, both printed and broadcasted become obsessed.

It's all arse!

First post of the new year, I still hate the Disney Channel

I logged onto my blog for the first time in a while and was surprised to see that I haven't posted since Christmas Eve. I has started a number of posts in the period between Christmas and New Year but failed to complete any of them, which I just forgot.

So here we are, the first post of 2013. The world did not end, time ticks on and all too quickly life returns to the normal daily routine, or at least as much of a routine that I will allow (I loathe the thought that tomorrow will be the same as today).  My long term contract is quickly drawing to close, I may only have a few weeks left, so I am escalating the exposure of my company at the same time as looking for another contract. I will be starting a professionally based blog very shortly and as such will not bother polluting my Pirate Badgers blog with anything other than personal nonsense.

The year began as the previous one had ended; with me searching for any reason not to write, to excuse my lack of progress with 'The Sausage Trail', which was great for other jobs I had spent months ignoring; I finally collated my 2000AD and Judge Dredd comic collection, rewired the AV kit in the lounge, sorted the hundreds of DVDs and XBOX games that have slowly grown in number over the course of 2012, I even de-fleaed the dog...twice. Then, yesterday, I received an email that summarily gave me a right royal kick up the arse. even now, as I'm blogging about my book, I have my iPad next to me and occasionally break for a quick game of Battle Monkeys (try it, it is amazing). I won! The email was from a literary magazine who are currently organising a German-themed spoken word event called 'Wanderlust' and have asked me to appear as a guest speaker. That combined with the attention from a number of newspapers and magazines has really spurred me on to get the trail rolling once more.

A recurring question that has intrigued me and fuelled my ever active imagination yielding future goals and aspirations has been one concerning a sequel. OK, I haven't even finished the first book yet, but if there is any measure of success from the final product then I hope that there will sufficient interest to justify a sequel. A number of destinations have been suggested, Indonesia, India, China, all over Africa. With the proper time and budget I would love to do these and more.

The sausage trail aside the year has began in a positive and productive manner and one which I feel I must maintain. I have also received an email from The Sausage King, a guy who has a wealth of knowledge on sausages, I have responded and look forward to a potential joint venture.

Thoughts later on the Everest trip and other charity rallys.