» Expensive Weekends

One night in Paris, is like a year in any other place.
Before we begin, let me just state that at no point in this story did I ever enter a Honda Accord. (Also, this is more of a mid-week thing)

Back in November 2009, I was working in a fucking awful job. I'd just decided to leave university due to the fact that studying management is essentially saying to the world "I wasn't smart enough to study economics" and was desperately scraping enough money together to keep paying the rent on my shared student accomodation as well as being able to maintain a 35% alcohol to blood ratio.
Days drudged by and I was getting more and more depressed, until suddenly out of nowhere an e-mail came in for a job at a well known Paris-based themepark.

I was absolutely stunned! They wanted to meet me urgently to see if I would be able to digitally animate and voice a small blue alien in one of their live shows. After a number of phonecalls and e-mails they arranged for me to head to their interview facility in Paris on the upcoming Thursday. Time is requested off work, flights are booked (£315 return).

Then I receive a voicemail, the interview needs to be moved to Tuesday. I'm in work so I call my mum asking her to take care of the details (£26.50 to change the date), time is booked off work and I begin to anticipate what could be the start of a whole new life for me.

Tuesday morning rolls around, I head to Manchester Airport from York via the train (£22 return), iPhone in hand with all flight check-in numbers stored. Sandwich & Starbucks at Station (£8)

Arrive at Manchester Airport and head to self check-in, tap in details... doesn't work. Try again... doesn't work. Storm Angrily over AirFrance's help desk and complain I can't log in, portly gentleman asks for check in details, he taps them into his computer and sighs heavily.

AF EMPLOYEE - "You can't check in today sir, because your flight is not within the next 5 days"
ME - "I'm sorry, I'm flying today"
AF EMPLOYEE - "No sir, You're booked for next Tuesday"

MY MIND GOES COMPLETELY BLANK.... Then I flashback to the phonecall to mum and me saying "Can you change the flight to the Tuesday before".

ME - "(Top Note in the middle of Terminal 2) I'LL BLOODY KILL HER!"
I scramble for my phone and desperately try calling her, she's at work, so I get put through and we have a lengthy debate about who was to blame, ultimately ending with me pleading with her to try changing my flight to today which it turns out is impossible, but theres a British Airways flight leaving in 45 minutes with open seats... from Terminal 1.

Ever seen that running scene in Home Alone in the Airport? I was re-enacting that but in fast forward, I find the desk and finally get to use the line "I need a ticket for the next plane to Paris, it's an emergency". They've only got first class tickets left. I reluctantly take it on the credit card. (£535 one way)

By now I'm running about an hour and a half late, so I make a series of calls to the team at Paris-based themepark to let them know, finally board the plane and land at Charles De Gaulle.
I rush to the train station and desperately try to buy a ticket (in extremely broken french) to Chessy as it's pretty much inside Paris-based themepark only to be told (I think) that the train has left and there's not another for an hour and a half.

I try to call the recruiter again, no reply. I decide a taxi would be the best way to get there so rush up the escalator out into the taxi stand without looking and my bag gets clipped by a large taxi-bus-thing and I crash to the floor. The driver gets out and begins apologising in French as I find my feet, I reach for my phone which has cracked in the fall and realise that this might be my only chance to get there on time... I try to ask him to take me to the themepark... he doesn't understand, eventually, I try to load the themeparks website on my horrifically broken phone and it clicks, he sits me in the front and off we go. (I can only assume he thought he'd really hurt me because he drove me the equivalent of Manchester to Liverpool for 5€)

I get to the interview sweaty, tired, stressed and a little bruised but it goes pretty well, not the greatest, but I'm hopeful. I thank them for meeting me and step to the front gates of the park and suddenly realise.
I'm in Paris, I only bought a one way ticket, I've no real way to get back to Charles De Gaulle, I'm due back in work tomorrow and I can't speak french. SHIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!

Eventually I end up buying a Eurostar from Chessy Gare to London, and upon reaching London buy a train ticket to York (£212).

18 hours after it all started I reach my bed £1118.50 and 5€ lighter, and to cap it all off... I didn't get the job.

Oh well, they're recruiting for the same position in Hong Kong next month.
(Sat 15th May 2010, 18:29, More)

» Family Feuds

I haven't spoken to my grandma in six years...
...not surprising really, she's dead.
(Wed 18th Nov 2009, 16:37, More)

» Professions I Hate

The Very VERY worst has to be those red vested, clipboarded, VO5ed twunts....
You know the ones I mean... "HELLO!!! Can we talk about how for just £1 you can cure cancer?!"

Now I'm not having a go at the scientists who ACTUALLY are working to cure cancer, or the organisations that are ACTUALLY helping to fund the research, or the individuals that ACTUALLY give a shit about curing cancer, I'm talking about those annoying little twunts that are fresh from their degrees in "Media Science" or whatever the hellfuck they graduated in without a flying fart of a job prospect and so to appease Mummy and Daddy got a job where they get to stand around on the streets of Manchester/Liverpool/Leeds/WHEREVER-THE-FUCK making YOU feel guilty for not wanting to spend your lunch hour talking about cancer.

Just so you know, these guys aren't "working" from the goodness of their heart, they're agency workers, getting paid on measurements of how many gullible sods they can get to sign up to pay a Publically Listed Company who will eventually "distribute funds" to appropriate research facilities.

Maybe they're gullible enough to believe that they're actually making a difference, maybe they actually do care about curing cancer, but to stand there fronting a COMPANY as if it were a CHARITY gets right on my Tits.

I just want to get to Boots, get my Meal Deal and EAT IN PEACE.
You want a quid to "cure cancer"? I'll give you a tenner to fuck the fuck off.
(Mon 31st May 2010, 20:06, More)

» Shame

Raised to seize the opportunity.....
....I'd speak my mind from an early age. So at the tender age of 5, in a bog-standard P.E lesson, whilst the class paused from the standardised running pointlessly in a circle in plimsoles (as endorsed by the government) we were asked by the teacher "Does anyone know the long name for your bottom?".
Quick as a flash an eager, young me raises his hand and exhales "The Vagina". I swear to God I have no idea where it came from... the worse thing was... probably neither did any of the girls.... DW
(Thu 24th Nov 2005, 22:49, More)

» Childhood Ambitions

An actor!
but I'm too ugly, talentless and ginger to go anywhere...
mind you, Chris Evans...
(Wed 4th Apr 2007, 3:23, More)