The Pope Must Die
A mate of mine worked as a freelance satellite engineer for TV news. Basically he sets up the computer controlled satellite equipment (which generally takes minutes) and points it at the sky. All he has to do then is make sure it doesn’t break down. He’s being paid for his knowledge of all things satellite – if anything does go wrong he can sort it out, but 99% of the time it doesn’t, so he just sits around on his arse, often in five star hotels, watching other people work.

That’s not the easy bit though – due to the nature of his job he’s had to visit various war-zones: Afghanistan, Iraq etc, so the handsome pay is mostly justified just for risking his neck in such places in the first place. However, he also gets quite a few less dangerous assignments – mainly assorted sporting events, which is a waste since he has zero interest in most sport. But his easiest assignment was surely back in 2003…

The famous sexist and homophobic AIDS spreader Pope John Paul II had been ill for years. Rumours swirled around media circles about his failing health and possible imminent death. The big news organisations know they need to be on top of things like this, so my mate was duly dispatched to Rome with satellite equipment so that when the old bloke carked it they’d be ready.

Now obviously Rome is not quite as remote as Kabul and has pretty reliable power etc already and as a result, when my mate had done the initial set-up, he had very little to do, except sit around, drink coffee, eat pizza and watch the Romans drive into each other (as anyone who has been to that city will know they have a tendency to do).

The only rule was that he had to be within 30 minutes of the equipment in case anything went wrong. So no trips to the seaside, but as long as he stayed within a Dan Brown-novel’s-plot-distance of the Vatican he could essentially do whatever he liked. Full expenses, nice hotel and every penny of his pay going straight into his already considerable savings account.

His initial run of this was six weeks, after which someone else took over for the next stint of Pope-death-watching, whilst my mate took a not-at-all hard earned break. After this break the Pope was still apparently on the verge of going to a better place (probably one populated by small choir-boys), so my mate went back to Rome for another stint of café slouching.

This happened three times in all - meaning he ended up spending the best part of a year waiting for the Pope to die…and the best part was JP lived another 18 months and didn’t actually get to meet the big boss man until 2005, by which time my lucky bastard mate was living the high-life in Australia, playing with his satellites at cricket matches.

I hate him.
(wombler, Fri 10 Sep 2010, 14:33, 4 replies)

I hate him too.

(boozehound is drinking your bar dry, Sat 11 Sep 2010, 8:27, closed)

The pope or my mate? I don't rate the current pope much:

www.badscience.net/2010/09/the-pope-and-aids/
(wombler, Mon 13 Sep 2010, 10:44, closed)

Does he need an assistant?

( Another_tragic_case wished he hadn't eaten all the cake, Mon 13 Sep 2010, 11:03, closed)

To be fair to my mate, I'm sure he'd point out the danger he's been in doing his job at points in his career. I remember in particular just after the start of the Iraq war he was in Kuwait and we were chatting on messenger when he sent me the following:

"Just a sec, air-raid sirens are going off so I have to put my gas-mask on."

...and Kuwait was a cushy number compared to some of his stories from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Still a lucky bastard though.
(wombler, Wed 15 Sep 2010, 10:41, closed)