{"id":890,"date":"2003-04-03T20:57:00","date_gmt":"2003-04-03T20:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/bologs\/vng\/chelt-en-ham\/"},"modified":"2003-04-03T20:57:00","modified_gmt":"2003-04-03T20:57:00","slug":"chelt-en-ham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/chelt-en-ham\/","title":{"rendered":"Chelt-en-ham"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now and again it’s nice to get out of the everyday routine – even if it’s just to do the same shit in a different place. Ok, it was a 13 hour day but we went on the train, I had a nice egg\/bacon bagel at Paddington, the sun was out, we saw loads of nice countryside, had a few beers on the way back and best of all someone was paying me!
\nThe actual job was in Cheltenham (Note to Americans – it’s pronounced “Cheltnam” ok ?) and I’d never been there before. It’s very pretty in the prettiest sense of the word, and that’s why I hope never to return. One of the most soulless places I’ve ever been to. I also didn’t see one pub the whole time. I’m not saying there wasn’t one…just that I didn’t see one. No matter where you go in most normal parts of the country you can’t avoid seeing a bloody pub so there is something wrong<\/i> there.
\nFor those that don’t know (that includes me until this week) Cheltenham is near Gloucester. We only passed through Gloucester on the train briefly so it’s not really fair to judge it, but I can totally see what drove Fred West to it…fuck that place. In fact I retract my statement about not judging a town purely on what it looks like from the train – ever been to Croydon ?
\nThe job was at a “patriotic” magazine’s headquarters, that for reasons of discretion I can’t talk about here…all I’ll say is that being one of three scruffy london longhairs, wearing a “stop the war” badge and turning up to fuck about with their computers was quite a lot of fun. One sad old codger even asked us if we were MI5…apart from sharing David Shayler’s gut measurment I really don’t think I qualify as looking like a spook.
\nThe uber-fuhrer of the company, a hopelessly sad characature of a Raj retired officer, was not at all happy with us wandering around. It’s just not BRITISH! They’ve probably got Euros in their pockets!
\nI wish we’d had the guts to tell him that:<\/p>\n