Arsehole of the world?

I was just recalling the various places I have lived and worked, Africa, the Gulf, Asia; and I thought how lucky I am to have been able to wander the world. In my opinion having a holiday somewhere is no comparison to actually working there for learning something of the problems, and joys, of a country.

There are, of course certain similarities, one being the fun of reading signs in English and wondering what is behind the meaning. Here I randomly select a couple for consideration. I ate at the restaurant with the famous roast stuff but was unable to find out why it was famous nor what the "stuff" was. But does it matter, it's all experience after all. And as for the warning on the right, it came as some surprise to me. Certainly the women I met in Nigeria would have taken no beatings from their men; at least not without poisoning them in retaliation.

But almost everywhere one has to contend with the dreaded mozzie and spider influx. At one time I used to take the malaria tablets but the amount of alcohol in my body deterred the germs, so I gave them up. But booze does not deter spiders, I remember walking into a room where my late wife, Cheryl, was and seeing her ironing as a huge jumping spider ambled towards her. I suggested that she leave and I destroyed the damn thing by throwing books at it until a lucky shot squashed it. For those who think me unkind I would point out that these were poisonous. Or so I was told by Nigerian ladies.

Another thing one comes across regularly, and in wide flung parts of the world, is the dung beetle. Its life sometimes seems to me to have parallels with my work, but perhaps that is just a flight of fantasy. However I was surprised when one of my cats in Malaysia suddenly decided that he should take up a similar mode of life. It took a while to persuade him that there were more interesting ways to spend his time.

However his interest in everything ensured that we were protected from the huge nasties that sometimes invaded the house, and which scared me (but not my present wife Alice) on a regular basis.

So with protection provided by Alice, cats and offspring, in spite of the unpleasant invading thingies I have yet to live and work in a place I could accurately describe as the arsehole of the world.

But I did have a (Brit) pal who worked in Oklahoma City for a while.