1.) “I Worked on a ferry, I learnt to tie knots.”   Whilst useful, not really necessary unless you’re planning a future working on the QE2.  Although I am considering throwing in a “tie me a sheep-shank and two half-hitches” question – just to see.

2.) “Employment Terminated, I was a bit wet behind the ears.”  Seriously, never admit that you were fired or that you deserved it. Ever.

3.) Never admit to stealing customer’s internet bandwidth so that you could play call of duty or World of Warcraft online.

4.) Never talk about yourself in the 3rd person

5.) Never write your life story in a light-hearted or amusing way as part of your C.V

6.)  Don’t lie on your CV.  Most people can spot a b***shitter a mile off.  Don’t lie about your experience or skills.  Be prepared to be closely tested.

7.)  When asked a question about your skills, don’t suck air through your teeth, shrug your shoulders and say “yeah, I’m pretty average at that”

8. ) Don’t ask if you can have access to the internet to answer interview questions.

9.) Being late is one thing, not actually turn up to the interview is another.  I’ve had two three no-shows – people have confirmed the interview over the phone and then, nothing.  No explanation, no reason, just didn’t turn up.

10.) Never, ever, use Comic Sans MS unless you’re 5 years old.  Even if you are a young attractive female with big boobs, don’t do it. Why not? http://sixrevisions.com/graphics-design/comic-sans-the-font-everyone-loves-to-hate/

Being honest is one thing, just don’t take it too far worlds-worst-cv-admits-to-stealing-laziness-and-skiving and make sure you know what job your applying for beauticians-confused-after-mistakenly-applying-for-building-site-nails-job

Thu September 1, 2011, 4:01 am: Has hit a new nadir in C.Vs – lets just say ‘Comic sans’

Thu August 25, 2011, 9:05 am: I needed a password 8 characters long so I used ‘snow white and the seven dwarves’ – Nick Helm.

Thu August 18, 2011, 2:25 pm: I was playing golf on my own today when I met someone else playing on their own. ‘Fancy doubling up?’ I asked him, ‘alright’ he said – so I kicked him in the nuts.

Mon August 8, 2011, 1:33 am: I went to the fish and chip shop last night and asked for a large fish and chips. The shop assistant said ‘the fish won’t be long’ so i said ‘it better be fat then’

Tue August 2, 2011, 12:44 am: The Doctor says my cure for agoraphobia is out there somewhere.

Thu July 28, 2011, 12:33 am: Every once in a while I stop and think, “I know you can read my thoughts.” Just in case.

Wed July 20, 2011, 12:58 am: “Harry Potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend” – (Stephen King )

Fri July 15, 2011, 3:34 am: is having trouble remembering the alphabet. I don’t know y.

Mon July 4, 2011, 12:08 pm: people at work say I should dress for success and I should dress for the job I want, not the job I have – From now on I’m dressing as spiderman

Wed June 29, 2011, 1:46 am: Has bought liquid viagra. Does nothing for your sex life, but a drop in each eye makes you look hard…..

Fri June 24, 2011, 10:03 am: It’s a cruel irony that Pringles tubes are only designed for slim hands.

Wed June 22, 2011, 11:08 am: I was walking through the park last night and one guy threw sodium chloride on me and another covered me in sulphuric acid. It was terrible. I didn’t know how to react.

Sat June 18, 2011, 10:36 am: An Englishman an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar and the barman says “Is this some kind of joke?”

Thu June 16, 2011, 12:25 pm: I’ve started a band called duvet. It’s going to be a cover band

Tue June 14, 2011, 7:34 am: I bought Bonnie Tyler’s car last year on ebay. It’s terrible, every now and then it falls apart.

Wed June 8, 2011, 12:39 am: The missus just found out I replaced our bed with a trampoline. She hit the roof.

Thu June 2, 2011, 3:08 pm: bus wankers <an Inbetweeners reference – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orzlz86p9bE&NR=1 >

Thu June 2, 2011, 3:11 am: Emma says my obsession with the monkees is getting too much. I thought she was taking the piss….then I saw her face.

Mon May 23, 2011, 2:17 pm: I went to the dentist the other day, he said ‘say ahhh’ I said ‘why?’ he said ‘because my dog died’

Sun May 22, 2011, 2:39 pm: I don’t want to boast, but this is like the forth or fifth end of the world i’ve survived

Fri May 20, 2011, 2:08 pm: so what if a can’t spell armaggedon. It’s not the end of the world….

Thu May 19, 2011, 9:39 am: I’ve had it up to here with jokes that use visual references.

Wed May 18, 2011, 1:08 pm: I’m NOT OCD about tidiness. I thought I just clear that up…..

Wed May 18, 2011, 12:00 am: A man has been found covered in wood, horse poo, hay and straw. His condition is said to be stable….

Mon May 16, 2011, 3:41 pm: I’ve started a new band called 999mb. We’ve not had a gig yet…..

Mon May 16, 2011, 12:41 am: Somebody called me ‘pretentious’ the other day. I nearly choked on my latte

Thu May 12, 2011, 10:22 am: My dog had to have part of its leg removed. I thought it’d look cool if it had a hook instead. It turned out to be a paw substitute

Wed May 11, 2011, 10:06 am: I’m so bored with life, I’ve decided to read the Oxford English Dictionary from start to finish. I’m past caring.

Wed May 11, 2011, 12:40 am: Paddy goes into Micks shed and sees him doing a striptease around his brand new Massey Ferguson…”What arrr you doin?” says Paddy Mick says “Me and Mary’s not getting on so good lately so the doctor said I should do something sexy to a tractor”

Tue May 10, 2011, 12:43 pm: what do you get if you cross a motorway with a cow? A dead cow…..

Thu May 5, 2011, 10:40 am: I’ve taken to stealing my dinner from the Zoo. That way I get the lion’s share.

Wed May 4, 2011, 6:47 am: I’ve spent the last six weeks trying to sell shergars corpse with no luck. I think I’m flogging a dead horse.

Wed March 16, 2011, 10:22 am: not pressing ‘post’ on comments could lead to some f

Thu June 17, 2010, 10:06 am: My Laptops been infected with the Rob Green Virus. Now I can’t save anything…..<rerference for non football fans http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilPSDQtzS9Q&feature=related >

Fri February 19, 2010, 9:48 am: My dog has no dictionary, how does he spell awful.

Tue January 12, 2010, 10:10 am: if at first you don’t succeed, fail, fail and fail again. Then hit it with a hammer.

Fri September 18, 2009, 3:05 pm: who’s the person playing charades in the corner of the evening news?

My top ten:

1. If you do this for me and I’ll refer all my friends.

This project takes 403% of your time and you get 0% referrals

2. “I can’t believe your software doesn’t do ‘X’  If you code ‘X’, for me, for free you’ll make a killing selling it to everyone else.”

If you won’t pay for this will anyone else ?  I’ll just work for free shall I?

3. “You’re a Programmer? – I’ve got a problem with my PC at home maybe you could fix it for me?

It’s a personal favourite of mine, it’s a bit like saying “You’re a doctor?  I’ve got a problem with my car , can you take a look?”

4. I need a fully functional website by close of business.  

I don’t program Web sites, what makes you think I can design one in the next hour and a half?

5. Think of this as a foot in the door, do this and I’ll refer more work to you.

Think of this as MY bill for MY time. 

6. I don’t want to spend any money but….(long rambling list of features )

OK, which bits of the software don’t you want?

7. I paid for something once 3 years ago and think it’s your duty to sort out all my other problems without getting paid to do so.

Brilliant.  Just watch me NOT help you. 

8. I need this tomorrow.

Another favourite, should I code /test/ implement faster? (again, which bit of the software don’t you want? )

9. My Nephew/Cousin/Dog  programs in MS  FrontPage/MS Access and he says it can’t be that complicated/expensive surely?  

If that’s the case you could get your dog to do it?

10. Software ‘X’ does this, yours should too.

Yeah, well software ‘X’ blows chunks and is written in BASIC why would I want to copy that?

Refrain:
All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful:
the Lord God made them all.
No He didn’t Darwin proved that in his book origin of species. With copious scientific evidence to back it up.
1. Each little flower that opens,
each little bird that sings,
God made their glowing colors,
and made their tiny wings.
(Refrain)
No he didn’t
2. The purple-headed mountains,
the river running by,
the sunset and the morning
that brightens up the sky.
(Refrain)
Filth Pure filth. Purple headed mountains. Come on (ooerr)
3. The cold wind in the winter,
the pleasant summer sun,
the ripe fruits in the garden:
God made them every one.
(Refrain)
Again. Darwin. God didn’t make anything.
4. God gave us eyes to see them,
and lips that we might tell
how great is God Almighty,
who has made all things well.
(Refrain)

How can this be allowed?  FILTH AND LIES. 

still least it’s not this : nekked gym (safe for work)

Jeremy and Jane

Read Emmas Blog on Jeremy – a mature addition to the household – here

http://emmaobrien.com/blog/emmas-blog/puppies-in-pet-stores/

Paul and I hit average tee shots before Peter himself Tees off. 

“oh, Well done, Peter” Squawks his lady wife.  To which I quickly reply: ‘Oh, i see you’ve brought your own fan club’

To no avail, rather than picking up on the hint that keeping schtum would be a good idea, she proceeds to gush over nearly every of the 106 shots Pete takes over the 18 holes.  ‘ohh-ing and ah-ing’ at every near-missed putt

Worse still I have to behave.  No copious swearing at putts left to short.  No ‘spear chucking’ an offending club selection that underperformed.  No telling of rude or inappropriate jokes.  Rubbish.

That is why I hated trains in the UK.

I worked in London for about two-and-a-half years.  During this time I got fairly intimate with complete strangers on the tube (Face to armpit for twenty minutes with some chap whose hygenie could be described as “poor”, made me query the sense of the London commute many times) and I also got to resent the other people who use the London underground.  Tourists.  Most of the time I managed to avoid the non-bleary-eyed, non-working, non-coffee induced plebs that clog the public transport system as 7am is not prime tourist time (sensibly, they are still in bed).  Anyway, there was one time during the long summer holidays, on a packed, overheated carriage that I overheard a conversation between father and son that brought a smile to my face.  

“So Johnny, what did you enjoy most today?  The London Eye, London Bridge or the Dungeons?”.  The boy was silent for a while considering  his response, then with a awe struck voice he said “The underground, because it goes  **under** the ground.”   I didn’t need to see his father face, I already registered an image of his dissapointment.  All that effort seeing the sites  and a £5 railcard would have kept his boy happy all day.  That’ll teach you, you smug tourist.

It’s also why I won’t use the Gautrain (pronouced How- Train.)  I’ve heard that people are so impressed with this piece of first world technology that they will ride the cow-train to the airport on a Sunday morning, not to catch a flight anywhere - but for the experience.  Then, they go home again!  Seriously, these people need to get out more.

If you don’t like something, change it.
If you can’t change it, change your attitude.
Don’t complain.

It’s human nature that people that do and say nice things usually get the same in return.   So understandably, you’ll appreciate that I get annoyed when faced with a customer that complains continuely and critises and “takes things to the highest level” everytime a tiny problem  occurs the customer goes away thinking “Yeah, I really put a rocket up his backside, he’ll think twice about messing with me”.  You’re wrong I get, not just annoyed, but also even (even if it is slightly petty. ) Your problem logged at 9am yesterday?  Yeah, I’ll look at it some time….erm….next week.  Follow it with another complaint and your bumped back a month.  See how this works?  Conversly, mr nice polite friendly how-are-you-today customer gets things sorted in double quick time.  I’ll even drop things from Mr complainer, in favour of Mr Friendly.

This is not an excuse to deliver bad service, it is human nature and it is related to the fact that the trousers will be in there somewhere.

They say “don’t bite the hand that feeds you”, I say “don’t dump on the guy that wipes your butt.” either.

Just a mere spoonful from the end of this “natural wholegrain cereal” which incidentally is also “nutritious” (like most foods) There is a commotion by the back door and the sound of a small struggle.   A dove or pigeon (I can’t really tell, the look the same to me - I am not an ornithologist) bolts into the house and settles in the eves at the top of our thatch roof.  Jane looks up at the dove/pigeon and seems rather pleased with herself.  I, on the other hand, am not.  I stare the pigeon/dove for a few minutes, wondering what the hell to do – the bird is settled 10 metres from the floor in an alcove window and is trying to fly through the glass. I need a plan.  

The first plan that comes to mind is “have a shower” so I do that, maybe I will find inspiration in there.  We have a step ladder, but that is too short even if I stand on the top step I’l be short by 7 m.  The next best idea was to try and throw some kind of blanket over it and then set it free outside and that’s the plan I put into action.  The next ten minutes unfold like some kind of bad Charlie Chaplin film with me failing miserably to catch the pigeon and the bird maintaining the upper hand.   Finally, the bird is perched on a supporting beam all I need to do is carefully sneak up on the bird, throw the blanket over it, release it out side, feed the dog, brush my teeth and get to work on time.

Carefully I stalk the pigeon, ever so slowly I prepare to throw the blanket over it.   It senses the danger and launches itself towards freedom.  Instead of freedom it finds its’ path blocked by the window in the alcove, which it hits with full force thwack. In slow motion the animal drops the 10 metres to the floor, right into the waiting jaws of Jane.  “NO!” I yell at her.  “Put it down!”  but it’s too late,  if slamming into the window at full force didn’t kill it or the 10m terminal velocity fall then being mauled by Jane certainly left things in no doubt.  The pigeon is most certainly dead if not from the trauma, then shock. I felt like saying something but there wouldn’t have been much point, the pigeon wouldn’t be able to hear me, as it was already quite dead.

RIP Pigeon

I disposed of the pigeon, fed the dog, brushed my teeth and went to work.  At work I felt a bit remorseful, so I wrote ‘ode to the pigeon’

pigeon you were quite stupid,
to be chased by Jane,
You’ve gone to meet your maker,
The dog is not to blame.
(it was me – sorry about that…)

Unfortunately, that’s not the only accident we’ve had in the past couple of days.  There is a pond that, whilst a bit murky, was in define need of a fish gold-fish to jazz it up a bit (and, I might add, to control the pending mosquito population within it). so I took Rosie to the local aquatic shop and came back with eight Goldfish. We set them down in pond prior to releasing them so they could get used to their new surroundings.  As we are walking back in the house I hear a thud and then, a crack.  I turn round and can see Rosie wedged between two stepping-stones, she is not crying – yet. She takes a deep breath and then she screams. You can always tells when kids are really hurt, instead of just playing to the crowd.  Emma panics. Blood gushes from Rosie head. I pull her to her feet and drag her, howling, into the kitchen. Grabbing a tea towel I soak it with water and press it hard to her head stemming the gush, looking at the cut, it doesn’t seem to be a very big cut but it must be pretty deep, as there’s a lot of blood. Five minutes later I take the compress off her head to examine the damage - I can see a deep, clean cut and what looks like her skull.  I think to myself, “oh crap this is going to need stitches”.

I’ve had stitches myself; it is not top of my list of favorite things because I have a slight phobia of needles, well to be precise, a fear referred to as Trypanophobia (the drawing of blood) rather than getting your shots.  At the hospital Rosie is not overwhelmed by the thought of stitches either and we have to hold her down when the doctor gives her an injection of local anesthetic.  Her cut swells to the size of a golf ball and the doctor starts pulling the wound apart to check that the skull is intact and, I suppose to also, look for any brains.  I feel ok up until the point where he starts to stitch the laceration back together – there’s a slightly sickening stretching pulling motion as the first stitch goes in – I start to feel little hot and uncomfortable. I need to get some fresh air, I go rather pale…..

Nurses start making a fuss and I ask for some water. I feel better so I nip back into the room where I find Emma has turned a distinctly whiter shade of pale and looks ready to pass out herself – I tell her to lie down on the bed next to Rosie. Rosie had 3 stitches in all, at a cost of 1250 Rand so, roughly, 400 rand per stitch.  Between us we managed to hold Rosie’s hand for all three of them. We leave feeling like a pair of complete wimps and agreeing that we will never make a living as surgeons.

I’m sat on the bus with Rosie, I can’t really remember why I was on a bus and that wouldn’t usually be something remarkable except to someone like me who detests buses and I’m about as likely to travel on one as the Queen is to go out partying on a Friday night with her three best lesbian friends.  I’m digressing.  The point is I’m on the bus, in the UK, with Rosie who, at the time was six and always feels the need to fill silence with some kind of noise, thus:

“Rob, me and my friend Candice, yeah. We went to the shops, yeah. And we brought sweets with some money what my daddy gave me.”

Wow. I am almost stunned. The delivery of this missive reminds me that she attends a school with some of the least well educated teachers, assistants and children that have ever graced the planet.  To give you an insight in how remarkably coarse and lacking the people are, we have to go back to the last day of school before Christmas break.

 Traditionally a thing that happens is some poor hapless man dresses up a Father Christmas and the kids all get a turn to tell him what they would like for Christmas.  The female classroom assistant is an overweight, 20 a day smoker with a kind heart, but the intellect of a mill-pond.  Her cries of “Alllrrriiigghhhttt daarrrlins’” in the morning invoked feelings of despair for the UK educational system.  A new nadir of cringe worthiness was reached on that afternoon when she announced, “Allriight kids caarrm-on, lets go see Sannnt-aaah”.   I feel ashamed to be English. Emma once overheard another parent outside school laughing over the comment she had left in her daughters reading log book “Brittany can read well when she can be bovverred” – she was particularly proud of the “bovverred” bit.

All of which drove me to say something to Rosie about her sentence. Ignoring all other inconsistencies I focused on one particular aspect. “Rosie, you don’t need to finish every sentence with ‘yeah’”  she looked at me, nodded and started again:

“Me and my friend Candice, YES. We went to the shops, YES. And we brought sweets with some money what my daddy gave me.”

I snort a laugh. “That’s not quite what I meant. What I meant was you do not need to say ‘Yeah’ or ‘yes’ at the end of every sentence, ok?” I stop myself, what I just said had sounded wrong, I tried again.

“What I mean is, when you ‘say we went to the shops’ it doesn’t need to be followed by ‘yeah’ or ‘yes’ it’s a statement, not a question. Ok?”

I sighed. I was just confusing her more, I turned to Emma, “I’m not doing to well at explaining this am I?”

Emma just grinned. I don’t think I was pompous but I did look a bit of an idiot.

Expressing the inner child

There was a certain fascination from the Japanese people; we were definitely seen as something different. Japan is the only place I have been to where, when we checked out of the hotel we had been staying in for a week, all of the staff that worked in there came outside to out to help pack our stuff into the worlds smallest taxi and wave us off. The manager bowed repeatedly to the point of looking like he was trying to rectify some long standing back issue and thanked us for coming to his hotel. It was a royal send off, marred slightly by the wheezing of the micro taxi as we made our way towards our next destination. Rosie was treated like a god. Being only 6 years old caused a stir in a country where western children are something of a novelty. We were stopped several times by complete strangers wanting photos with of themselves with her and exclaiming “cute-o, cute-o!” I wondered about this and whether they put the photos in frames at home or showed them to friends. “Look, an English child, isn’t she cute-o?” It all seemed a bit odd. We should have charged for the photos, we would have made a fortune.

Walking around Tokyo exposed more oddness, Hibiya Park is close to the Imperial Palace so we decided to walk through it, it was on the way and the playground was good a distraction for Rosie. The park had a few swings a slide and some more serious looking equipment, parallel bars and rings. After a few minutes of watching Rosie run around my attention was drawn to the suited Japanese man limbering up next to the parallel bars, he removed his jacket, mounted the bars and started swinging. I watched him for a while. It seemed a little bizarre to be watching a man, who was not really in dressed for the task, busy himself on the apparatus.  Then I noticed the man on the swing, there was something charming about watching a Japanese businessman, wearing his suit and indulging his inner child. In the distance a Japanese man strummed a guitar and wailed a heartfelt song of woe. None of these things seemed at all out of place.

I reflect on the idea of going to Japan some more and say “14 metres, can you imagine? That’s a ridiculous amount of snow.”

“Hmm” says Emma.

So that was the entire basis for going to Japan. There would be a lot of snow. The idea of seeing a completely different culture and absorbing the knowledge of centuries of traditional Japanese ways was more of a side issue. So, we went.

A 12 hour flight on a plane with 3 people who are easily bored is not much fun. Emma had planned well and bought a “Learn Japanese in 6 weeks CD” unfortunately, she hadn’t planned any time to listen to it. The only time she really got around to listening to it was on the flight to Tokyo and the only thing I learnt was that it is not possible to learn Japanese in 11 hours and 53 minutes. Rosie, fortunately, stropped for about 2 hours before becoming bored and falling asleep.

If not learning the lingo was the first mistake, the second was taking two vegetarians to a country where the notion is to eat everything that moves and anything else that doesn’t. I became concerned about this before our trip “Can’t you just NOT be a vegetarian for two weeks? I won’t tell anyone.” I lie. “It would be so much easier”.

The reality of Japans restaurants hits at about 6 p.m Emma has cast her doubt over just about every single restaurant we’ve come across in Tokyo, I’m beginning to despair, I could happily wolf down a Big Mac and large fries except I haven’t seen a McDonalds since we got here – which I find extraordinary in itself. Our last-minute saviour is a tiny place called “Curry Garden 2” tucked away down an alley, it boasts an “Engrish menu” which is close enough for me, and we head inside. A few mouthfuls of food any everyone’s happy, the sarcasm kicks in.
“Why’s it called ‘Curry Garden 2’? I ask no one in particular.
“Was there a Curry Garden 1? Was the original better than the sequel? Do they just add a number to the end when they can’t think of another name?”

Our favoured haunt quickly became the 7-eleven, where we could buy bits and pieces for sandwiches and the prized Kup-noodle. The good thing about Kup-noodle was that you pretty much knew what you where getting, something freeze-dried that you could bring back to life with a little hot water. About a week and a half into the Japan trip, Emma noticed that the tomato chilli cup noodle she had been favouring contained a small amount of porky, hammy goodness – but by then I think she was beyond caring.

We start in the mid afternoon, we decide to head into the park for a drive, the best time to see anything being later in the day – we are keen to get started. Emma is on a quest to see leopards, as there several (3) in the park, I’m doubtful that we’ll see anything but Emma is using her expert tracking skills – also known as “guess work” – to get us on their trail. Seeing much of anything in the wild is pretty difficult, you can drive right by an Eland or a Zebra and hardly know it’s there, animals silently appear and disappear in to the bush. After a bit of driving on the tarmac roads, Emma decides it’s time to go off onto the dirt tracks. Off road-ing in a small compact car is definitely a challenge, small rocks are more like boulders, waiting to write off the suspension, lacerate a tire and dislodge your fillings, so we proceed painfully slowly. Thirty minutes pass, we are climbing to the highest peak in the park, we’ve seen nothing and the sun is low in the sky. It’ll be dark soon. Rosie has exhausted all interest in anything outside of the car and starts playing on her D.S. It gets confiscated immediately much to her disgust. I can appreciate that it is probably pretty boring for a six-year-old when not a lots happening but we’re here together we ARE going to be bored together, damn it.

The road smoothes and we begin to pick up speed; I’m resigned to disappointment, of seeing a big fat zero in acres of game reserve – so much for Emma and her tracking skills. Then literary out of nowhere, a leopard emerges from the bush and onto the road in front of us. I let out a yelp and slam on the brakes bringing the car to a skidding halt. The leopard registers a look of in-difference in our direction and then starts to amble off down the road, We follow the feline for several minutes before it disappears into the bush. Still slightly awe-struck, we relax and reflect on the rare moment and agree that we are fortune to have seen such a magnificent animal, we also agree that was fortunate for the Leopard that we were not travelling any faster down the dirt-track otherwise the it may have ended up making an interesting ornamental addition to the car – something that would be probably be frowned upon by the park rangers. It is getting late – the park closes at 6pm, the thought of being locked in the park at night with some hungry wild animals is not appealing.

We decide to make our way to the gate. We trundle along for a few kilometres before coming across a warthog standing in the road, before we can say “why is there a warthog stood in the middle of the road” or “oh look, there’s a warthog in the road” a leopard pops it’s head up from the bush, not 50 metres away from us, he casts a scowling look. I swear if leopards could talk it would have certainly said “You’ve just spoilt my dinner, you bastards”. Two swift strides and the leopard had evaporated into the bush to hunt some other poor defenceless creature. Awe-struck, two leopards in less than half an hour. We pull away again continuing to make our way to the exit, and not really paying much attention to our surroundings. 200 metres later Emma lets out a cry of “stop!” I look to the left and there’s a BLOODY GREAT ELEPHANT less than 2 metres from the car, slightly further away is another, and another – then I look to my right and realise, we are surrounded.

It’s only when you get really close to an elephant that you begin to understand what big really means. By now, I’m concerned about our proximity to the elephants, knowing full well that they can get a bit agitated if you get too close. The story of the sexually uneducated elephants that were introduced to the park replays through my mind. Note: Some while back junior bull elephants were introduced to the park and were less than au fait in the ways of love and, in their frustration, some white rhino came to grief, it was only when a more senior bull elephant was introduced to show them the ropes, that the situation calmed down. This was not before 42 white rhino were humped to death in confused pachyderm passion.
It occurs to me that whilst the car IS white, it is also roughly the same size as a rhino, I hope to god that the elephants have got over their confusion. Emma snaps away with the camera, and the nearest elephant, which was happily grazing away on some bushes, turns slightly, takes a step towards us and lets out a mighty trumpeting Brriaaah! I drop the clutch and boot the accelerator as hard as I can – the car lurches forward in possibly one of the greatest standing starts ever achieved in the history of small family sized cars. I glance in the review mirror to see a cloud of orange dust settling behind us and an elephant stood exactly where we had stopped. My heart races – we have narrowly avoided being turned into a pancake. I don’t stop, stuff the weedy tires, we are LEAVING the park.