As already alluded to in the Lindell thread, it turns out that one has in fact lived a rather unusual life and some of the chapters.....part of the book I have been nagged, badgered and cajoled into writing may help to illuminate the fractured path of one's life......
https://thefogbow.com/forum/viewtopic.p ... 976#p83976
So, the first in a few of the chapters I may share.....
One of my minions once said to me, “Mr B, don’t you ever think that God’s trying to either kill you or at least tell you something….? I mean….you’ve been shot at….. frequently, blown up, survived 9\11, skull fractured at least 3 times that you remember, left an epileptic through one of said skull cave ins, been hijacked….TWICE….the list kinda goes on….”
Now, being a creature of my background and upbringing, all introverted, ex army, upper middle class, private boarding school, pale, male and possibly stale(ish), introspection, self analysis and concerns about shit happening were never matters I concerned myself about.
Having to reluctantly be coerced into looking back and seeing how I came to be the occasionally fractured and psychically malformed monkey I am suddenly seemed a not wholly unreasonable waste of my time.
Which is where we come to the written laying down in chicken scratchings of my verbal logorrhoea and hopefully an amusing romp through my dysfunctional past as well as how, even if God seemingly has it in for you, you can actually metaphorically gesticulate with middle finger and flash your pale and round arse in his/her face and make it… your way.
As background
I’m a 3rd generation expat brat, brought up in the Middle East, went to boarding school and had a loving and very scary mother who was the first female travel manager in the Arabian Gulf.
I then spent several years in the Army doing “stuff”, worked in front office management in some of London’s finest 5 star hotels, did IT stuff in the City, worked as a Global Audit Liaison lead for a German Investment Bank, was transferred to the US as a regional CISO for the America’s and Asia-Pac, global CISO’d for the wind down of the worlds largest bankruptcy (Lehman Estate), worked for the Russians for a year, then ran as CISO for International for one of the largest global Fintech/Finserv companies out there.
Then I ran roughshod over the cultural norms and expectations of some incredibly bright, frequently incredibly over focussed Millennials in an amazing fintech startup where I wore shoes that were older than 65% of the folks on the floor….and I loved learning new stuff every day.
It helped that the company provided beer and surprisingly good wine on Thursdays, I was one of the founding members of the official Whiskey Club and my career means I get invited to a LOT of dinner and drinks.
Anyway, for me to get “here” from “there” has been a strange, convoluted and occasionally bizarre trek through my life where many if not most of the tools and techniques in my tattered grab bag of stuff came about from my experiences.
Chapter prequel
One of the consequences of my young life was a sharp and well earned reminder that actions have consequences and one always has to pay the piper.
And here in my books were reminders and guides, in this case an example would be in “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”, there is a phrase and ethos in the book of society in the Lunar bases called TANSTAAFL. “There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch”.
It is a phrase I still remember and was driven home during my escapade. If something is “free” it‘s not, there is a reason, a requirement, a cost, a consequence for all things. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. It can be as intangible as air, as invisible as gravity, as unseen as memory and it still will bear a cost.
This was part of the cultural indoctrination of the time as well. One was expected to work hard, play hard, exceed, pay forward and pay back and you WERE going to do something of yourself.
You were made aware that you had a very comfortable life, you had opportunity unlike most others and society was treating you very well. But “Remember Cinderella, nothing is “owt for nowt”, there is a payment you're expected to pay.
This was also tinged with the paternalistic imperial past, genteel racism of “The White Man's Burden“ of the older generations where you were expected to assist and help those without your birth endowed luck.
This did tend to end in bizarre situations where, for example, at 16/17, during the summer hols, I was expected to partially make my way and ended up working in the Refinery, in Maintenance, bossing a gang of 15-20 labourers and craftsmen on building work. I was expected to keep ‘em working, keep ‘em safe, manage their payroll, hit project deadlines and QA and QC their work. In addition, I ended up intervening in their housing problems, arguing on their behalf in visa disputes, reviewing contracts for those with poor English and on one occasion dealing with the repatriation of the corpus of one Indian who lost the argument between alcohol, road and Nissan 280ZX.
All for the princely sum of 200 dinars a month.
Having said that, it meant at the time I was saving and sending back to the home bank about 200 per month, in 1978, the equivalent of about 1700 in todays terms.
And so we come to the chapter
The Law of Unintended Consequences or..”Do you recognise this Carpse”
Now, as I alluded to above, one of the skills that I never put down on my resume was “Effective and timely repatriater of human remains”. You see, when you are informed by your boss, over a fried egg sandwich breakfast that he has a new “opportunity to excel” for you, in general you wince and hope it doesn’t involve sewage. In this case it was …. waste management …. of a different form.
“Now, Michael, I’ve been very impressed by the way you’ve been working with and assisting the team and the work group. You were very …. forceful… when discussing and reviewing their contracts and so on”…….
“Yessssssss…..”
”Well, I’m sure you remember all the clauses, you did argue their cases, not infrequently….”
“Yessssssss”…
“Well, turns out Raj Number 3 had a bit of an accident Thursday night, terrible thing….so, well, …here’s the paperwork… “
“OK…. Paperwork for what exactly ?”
“The repatriation, to India, of Raj Number 3, enjoy”
You see, one of the relatively few, iron clad rules in the standard Indian workers contract was, that if they should shuffle off this mortal coil whilst on the island, their remains were to be repatriated back to their home for burial. There was a process, there was a LOT of documentation and the red tape was….impressive.
So, in my sweaty and unwilling hand was thrust a very thick manila folder filled to the bursting with stuff.
A doctors report, time of death record, coroners report, police report, magistrates report and conclusion that it was an accident and no fault was assigned (seemed a bit sus to me but…), contract details, contact details, next of kin notification form, authorisation to release the deceased, assigned authorisation to accept the deceased (with my name already bloody filled in), appointment form with the coroners office to hold or release, contact details for “preservation”, “storage”, “handling”, “packaging”, Indian Embassy contact details for an import licence, Bahrain Customs contact details for an export licence…Airline contact details for transport, “fixers” details in Bombay who would sort out transport from airport to home village etc etc etc.
My first reaction was close to gibbering, closely followed by loud and voluble inventive swearing. Oh and I had, as my first official job, to go and formally identify the deceased.
Now, I didn’t drive so my first act as the new handler of remains was to wander over to my boss’s office and inform him that I was assigning a driver and car to myself to get the work done and I WAS going to be raiding the petty cash aggressively, no questions asked.
And so the enthralling joys of bureaucracy and paper commenced.
Off to the morgue where fortunately Raj Number 3 was displayed only from the face up with the rest of the gory details covered. This was also where the phrase “The Carpse” started and became a part of my new vernacular. No one it seems wanted to use words like, deceased, passed away, unfortunate, remains etc….No Raj Number 3 was now….”The Carpse”. Not “Corpse”….”Carpse” usually accompanied with a strange “S” shaped shaking of the head.
Fortunately, I had one major favour on my side…..my mother. Mother had dealt with some of this stuff before, being a travel manager and was considerably more scary, than I was.
So, the next two weeks flew by, embalming, paperwork, import and export licences, cargo booked and finally …. The coffin.
See….. you can’t just wrap ‘em in cling film, shove ‘em in a box and add a lot of stamps. You need a coffin and not just any old coffin, a coffin for international transport.
That meant, lead or zinc lined, soldered or otherwise sealed, inside another coffin with all sorts of decals, stickers and hazard warnings. My mother finished the paperwork, paid with a set of vouchers to the airline and off “The Carpse” went. I returned to sweating at the power station build until the end of the summer vacation then back to Dear Old Home and the sweaty embrace of school.
Except…… Unintended consequences…
About 6 weeks after “The Carpse” had left, my mother was working in the capital, doing travel manager stuff when suddenly two very large and heavily armed police officers barged into the office and rushed towards my mother.
Then, as described by my mother, their officer, in a blindingly white starched thobe and impeccable Boarding School English stood and informed my mother she was required to answer some serious matters.
My mother, I was told, apparently raised herself to her full 4 foot 11 ½ inches and stormed out of the office with the coppers traipsing behind her whereupon she stood outside the police car with arched eyebrow and “Well…I’m waiting for you to hold the door for me”.
My mother informed me that they were driven to the main security station where it was alleged that the prisoner in and out count was…occasionally somewhat…spotty and escorted through a labyrinth of corridors where she was required to keep her eyes down, to an institutional green, easy wash down painted walls office.
The lead officer them opened a large and thickly filled manila folder, extracted a photo and asked my mother if she recognised the individual.
Which she didn’t…at which point in an AH HA moment he pulled out the manifest for The Carpse and thrusting it at my mother accused her of lying as she was the name on this paperwork.
Knowing my mother she probably bestowed that maternally severe yet sad look usually reserved for when your child has plainly messed up beyond all reasonable expectations on him and explained in small and bite sized phrases that yes she shipped the cargo but no she would never have actually, as a travel manager, looked at the bloody thing.
In a faltering attempt to get back on track he then thrust a full length shot of The Carpse at my mother who promptly started to giggle.
The Carpse and coffin had obviously be intercepted on the way to the cargo delivery and the body had about two dozen watches pushed up each arm, bottles of scotch cradling all around the body, cartons of cigarettes stuffed betwixt the legs and forming a bed under the body and so on, to the extent that it was almost impossible to see the body.
Once the officer realised that my mother wasn’t actually some smugglers moll he relaxed somewhat and told my mother the tale.
It seemed that when The Carpse had been dispatched, it arrived in Bombay just in time to be a part of a baggage handlers strike…during the heat of summer. The cargo, including the coffin, had been left in an unconditioned and baking hot warehouse for over 2 weeks. Further it seemed the embalming had been….less than efficient and the sealed metal liner incompletely, well, sealed.
Eventually someone made the connection between the increasing and unpleasant odour and the coffin and the equivalent of a Hazmat team opened the coffin to reveal its malodourous smuggled treasures.
The discovery led to my mothers custodial perp walk then led to Security deciding that the best idea would be to track further such nefarious activity and enrolled my mother into becoming for a time the only authorised body shifter travel management company on the island. Her boss was very happy with the margin, my mother became less enthused but cheered up with the extra bonuses and freebies the airlines threw at her.
In the next chapter we may cover "The past....it's not just another country .... the kids today would think it's another universe"
