The laughably named and in no way at all pseudonymous Phil McCollum takes time out to share a few thoughts on life’s little quirks
“Don’t you find that, as expats, you cease to be part of the same race as British non-expats? You’ll say something in all innocence, like: ‘When I was going through the Khyber Pass…’ or: ‘When two machine guns opened fire on our jeep on the Iraqi border…’ and non-expats will look at you as if you’d just said ‘The last time I was abducted by aliens…'” Phil finds that some of the people she’s left behind no longer understand her.
“You just can’t imagine how busy this week has been for me. First it was Queen Victoria trying to break the door down because she wanted access to the website…” Phil struggles with cardboard eagles, loses her school blazer and careers through downhill canals. Eh? Read on…
“Brits have a reputation for being pet lovers and that’s great. I quite like dogs, when they’re not fierce-looking brutes who jump on me and clart my clothes with muddy paw-marks. And I don’t mind cats when they’re in someone else’s house and being all nice, fluffy, and purry. But what drives me mental is all the pooh involved.” Phil McCollum sounds off about a pet hate.
“Sometimes people start projects and you can tell from the start that they’re never going to succeed. Sometimes they surprise you – and then again, sometimes not.” Phil takes a break from her daily routine of doing the accounts and being shot at to look at a home-made aircraft…
“When you know nothing of the person with whom you are communicating and they know nothing about you it’s easy to misinterpret things: does ‘Where do you live?’ mean ‘So I can murder you in your sleep’ or ‘I would like to have a physical relationship with you’ or ‘I have fun reading your messages, I like you, and I’m curious to know more about you’?” Phil reflects that what you say isn’t necessarily what the other person hears…
“Fast forward to the 1990s. Smoking is not acceptable in the UK and you feel like a complete outcast when you have to sit alone in the garden at parties, because you’re not allowed to smoke inside. You get to the stage where you feel you might as well say, ‘I hope you don’t mind if I just find a vein.'” Phil can live (just) with becoming a pariah – but being mucked about by the airlines is another matter.