Interlude #6: Death by Ceiling

Sooooo...there I was sitting at a desk in a hotel room (that shall remain nameless) in Malta; quietly researching the discussion topic for the 'activity' that seems to be a part of all university applications in the UK. (Just a side note, I was a candidate in three of these 'activities' while interviewing for jobs in the UK - two presentations and one discussion topic. In all instances that question/topic was horribly worded so that they barely made sense and I wonder at the effectiveness of them. The one for Exeter was particularly bad as the questions asked in my discussion bore no relevance to the question whatsoever...but I digress)

Anyway, there I was diligently working away on my laptop with the TV going beside me. I think to myself, 'you know what, that bed looks mighty comfortable and I can see the TV from there. I might just waddle on over and work from the bed instead of this perfectly functional desk."

Taking my own advice I switch locations and settle in for an evening of prep work (it was quite late a night), however, it seems that fate had a different idea.

It commenced with a shocking loud craaaaaack! and I had just enough time to shout "what the f..." (I'm not censoring blog, I literally did not have time to finish the word) before the world came crashing around me Chicken Little style.

When it rains in Malta it pours.

In case you are having trouble interpreting the photo what you are mostly seeing is large chunks of ceiling generously interspersed with shards of desk. The cave in completely crushed the desk yet amazingly my phone survived unharmed despite been thrown across the room. My pocket watch was not so lucky and had to be extracted from the rubble. It had stopped working but I got it repaired for like 20 euro and used its not workingness to extort a couple of night free accommodation at another hotel of high quality. Oh, and that piece of ceiling resting innocently on the chair would have brained me if I had decided to stay.

 

The view from the releative safety of my bed; you can see the missing patch of ceiling. I say relative because because I was covered in debris and a hug chunk of rock embedded with steel was found under the bed...

I survived, but it was close. The most scary part was that I had to extricate all of my belongings in the world (I was still living out of a suitcase at this time) from the room with the constant fear the the rest of the roof would go. I hid in the bathroom a lot and had a clear exit path to the balcony ready. I felt kind of safe knowing I would get a half second warning if the rest decided to come crashing down. The funniest part? talking to the hotel manager the next day....

"yeah, this can happen if water seeps through the ceiling, there's not really much we can do about it..."

Pretty sure you can do something about that chummer, in fact, I presume that's a pretty major part of your job...

England: Swindon and Surrounds

After Exeter I had some time to burn, waiting to see if I would get the job (I didn't, which turned out to be a good thing), so I decided to spend some time in Swindon. When I mentioned this to any British folk I met I was invariably asked: why?

The answer:

GoofCode! (Note: this photo is not from Swindon - Swindon is not this exciting).

So I went to Swindon, where Amanda had scored a great job at a bank and Goof was essentially a house husband...except they don't have kids...and they were not married. So really Goof was just a mooching off Amanda. Anyway, I stayed there for some time. To make matters cooler Goof's bro was there for a couple of days too. Now, the problem was that, as many of the British folk had pointed out, there was not much there. In fact all Swindon seemed to have to offer was a 'magic roundabout' which is five roundabouts all joined together.

Shadows! This may not seem like a big thing to all my mates back at home. But It is rare to see the sun come in in Britain so this super exciting! We celebrated. With beer. 

Much to my disappointment I missed this marvel of modern traffic engineering. Instead, Goof and I visited the many pubs and some of the more interesting surrounding towns. Although, that said one day we did walk out of Goof's place with the intention of going somewhere good and saw a hordes of people walking in the opposite direction. As I have always been a sucker for peer pressure we decided to follow them and we stumbled upon an international festival of some sort with weird dancing and music, food, and hippy doctors. It was kinda fun.

A Celtic Knight -  found at a museum in Cirencester. 

First we went to to look at the neolithic rocks at Avebury. These were actually quite cool.

 Baiky and I compare ourselves to some rocks.

The arrangement didn't quite make sense, but there was a massive ditch dug around the rocks that encompassed an area maybe the size of an AFL field or bigger and the rocks were placed all throughout. Big rocks, like it wasn't some drunken party, it required real effort and fore thought. But hey, I am sure they had there reasons.

Many smarter minds than Goof's have pondered why you would bother - but he is more photogenic than those academics. The ditch you can see just behind him. There was also a trail of rocks extending out from the enclosed (enditched?) area.

We visited Cirencester, a nearby town that had a castle, which is pretty much the reason I wanted to go as I had never seen a castle before (except the one outside of Holbrook, of course!). We also visited the museum here and I learnt about the history of the area, including the Roman occupation of Britain. If I remember correctly Cirencester, or the region, had a relatively large Roman military presence. All in all though it seems being a Roman soldier was a pretty good life (they got bacon!)

 My first castle.

The final place we visited was Chedder (can you believe there is a place called Chedder, honestly who would name a place after cheese). Chedder is the proud owner of a magnificent gorge that is considered one of the most highly rated tourist locations in England. Goof and I trudged all the way around, met some goats, saw some people taking a slightly more difficult route to the top, examined some road art, and decided that there must be a formula to writing comedy (not sure if Goof agreed with me on that one).  

 The road art: expand the picture if you can and you'll see some boobs drawn on the road. Told you there was a formula to comedy.

And we bought cheese. It wasn't too bad a place; smaller than I expected and a little too populated - kind of like going to the Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains. That said, I have learnt that over here nothing is remote which is kinda hard to get used to.

And to think I got a little bit nervous when the wind suddenly changed direction.

Well, after some time, a couple of weeks I think it was, I decided I had to move on and give Amanda and Goof some privacy so I packed up and moved on to visit an old friend in Switzerland.

Baiky loved it! Me, I was too scared to near the precipice.

England: Exeter

I spent a short time in Exeter, a lovely city in the south of England, as I had another job interview with the University there. With the exception of the period leading up to an including the job interview I spent my time thoroughly sloshed or tramping through cathedrals.

 Exeter Cathedral it is huge; and took 350 years to build.

Probably my must memorable moment was playing pool and darts with a Serbian, who had been a member of a Serbian SWAT team before a back injury left him unfit for work, in a dodgy pub on the canal. It was particularly memorable as some dipshit decided he did not like me an challenged me to a game of pool with a £50 bet because I did not like ONE of the songs he put on the jukebox. Previous to this I had being complimenting him on his music taste because he had played good music. Being a gentleman I politely refused as I did not think it would be fair to take the poor chaps money and I was worried he might think I was hustling him as he had only seen me play left-handed (the serbian was not very good).

 Not a pool hall - but happens to be the longest uninterrupted vaulted ceiling in England. I guess that is impressive, but make anything obscure enough and it will the best of its kind. I was interested in the Astronomical clock that they also had inside.

Anyway, this twat thoroughly beat his girlfriend at pool, and then went on to beat some young kids who had wandered in the entire time crapping on about his superiority over everyone. It was after my 1000th pint of beer that I decided someone needed to shut his trap so firmly asked if he still wanted that game of pool. After he grinned and cockily insisted he would pay for the game I stumbled over to the table, calmly picked up the cue with my right hand and showed the man a thing or two about the game of 8-ball.

If he was smart, this is where he would have started praying.

Like most hacks, once he realised he was going to lose (i.e. after my first visit to the table) he resorted to yelling abuse in my ear while I was taking my shot. By the end of the game even his girlfriend had told to sit and shut up because he was embarrassing himself. After winning the table I gave it to the youngsters. Ah, yes the memories of Exeter.

Overlooking Exeter...from a shopping mall carpark.

They also have gorillas plastered around everywhere. It is some tourist thing where your supposed to find them all...but I had pubs to visit. 

 Baiky went Gorilla hunting though.