Boardingcard please

Europe, its nations and cultures continues to provide a rich source of inspiration for me and is also the thing that makes my job so varied and interesting. Selling perfume and may not be the most riveting of jobs in the world, but the fact that your customers have a completely different profile from hour to hour is.  I’m not talking about national stereo-types but every flight has its own quirks.

For example, cigarettes must be expensive in Switzerland and as it is a tax-free destination we sell lots of cigarettes during the Geneva and Basel flights. I rather like the Basel flight as there are a number of German speaking customers on it. 

During the morning we have an Aeroflot flight to Moscow, which means clear the decks and roll up your sleeves as everything must be expensive in Moscow. Wine, fine Champagne, cosmetics; basically if the Moscow flight is a bit light we won’t have a good day. It also helps to learn a few words of Russian such as Boarding card and transfer (Biljet and transit if you’re interested) I’m currently working on ‘Bon Voyage’ (Schastlivogo puti) but not managed it yet.

Being surrounded by all these nations, it is tempted to start by asking for a boarding card, but this should be avoided at all costs. There is nothing that annoys a French passenger more than being spoken to in English in their own country, so I always lead with ‘Votre card d’embarkement s’il vous plaît’ and only ask for a boarding card if you receive a look of utter panic of your passenger.

Then last there is the British quirk, like it or not you are in Europe, therefore you have to pay European union prices (not tax-free) It is best to explain this before you ring up the purchase, otherwise you end up cancelling the sale when they find out they can’t buy tax-free. Maybe it is the fact that Brits can’t buy cheap alcohol and cigarettes on their holidays to the continent that is stirring up this anti-European rhetoric. To be honest, it wouldn’t surprise me.

Edit

I'm very excited by having started the edit of my second book. Steering the ship safely through the murky waters of grammar and punctuation is, like in book one, my friend Penny. I wouldn't be as flippant as to say that writing a book is easy, but everything after you finish the final chapter seems to be harder. I often talk about how hard it is to promote your book and how things are complicated by living in France (see ISBN) Today I hit another French complication.

I do all my work on an incredibly cheap Packard bell note book. I love it as it has a nice keyboard and it is so small and light that I can take it anywhere. It has been fine to do most word processing tasks but it didn't come with the full version of Microsoft Word. Word has a very nice changes tracking function which my editor used. I would just need to OK the changes and job done. My version of Word is in French, but even after much searching I could not see a way to OK anything. Penny very kindly send me the link to a help site but after more head scratching I realised that my version could not sing and dance and I would need the full version of Word to send back something she can work with.

Help was at hand as my husband's computer does have the full version and even better; it's in English which makes following the dummy guide so much easier. With my husband away at work I rolled up my sleeves and got stuck in. I was zipping through the red changes marking them as agreed with a click of the mouse until I hit the French snag. My husband and I both have French keyboards or AZERTY, but for some reason Word thought I was using an English or QWERTY keyboard. Hubby assured me it was possible to change it, but it wouldn't be easy to explain over the phone. I decided to carry on and after a while you get used to typing a Q when you need an A or Z when you need W etc.

Finishing the book was only the start of the journey; it is all those other skills and experiences I'm picking up in trying to get published and a readership that is proving the most challenging.

Racism

Being white, blonde haired and blue eyed, I've never expected to be on the receiving end of racism. I've sometimes heard mutterings and sighs behind me along the lines off: 'them English' but this week I had a lady very coldly asking me whether only foreigners worked here. I was dumbstruck as my Moroccan colleague and I had bend over backwards to help her with her purchases. If I feel racism, I can only imagine how bad things are for my friends and colleagues who are not white.

This leads me back to my previous blog I did on voting. I did only get to vote once and will have to wait for that free pizza a few years longer as the sitting Mayor got re-elected in the first round with 52%. I nearly bumped into Marine le Pen at Nice airport a few days before the election. Visiting the area to rally her Front National party must have paid off as they did alarmingly well in the south, polling 25% in our village.

The Côte d'Azur is a very overcrowded stretch of land; every one wants to come and live in this beautiful area that benefits from one of the best climates in Europe. With the foreign tourists come the workers that can deal with them. French is not an easy language to master and the passengers I meet on a daily basis are just relieved when I speak to them in their mother tongue and a happy passenger is one that spends; pumping lots of Euro's back into the economy. I find living and working amongst these many nationalities and cultures hugely inspiring, but sadly not every one is of this opinion.

So how do I deal with Mrs I don't like foreigners? Well I got myself registered to vote. Meanwhile I try and lead by example, treating every one with respect and courteousness. I gave her my 'I don't get what you just said there' smile and wished her a 'Bon voyage madame!'

Not so easy

First a bit of news, I had a productive day off when it wasn't good enough to swim. I now have nearly 7 stories ready for the short story bundle and am now looking into publishing these together with some stories written by my friend Elspeth. The only snag is that Amazon KDP will not let us set up a joint account to split the royalties at source. I'm sure we'll find a way round this. Honestly, writing is the easy part, everything else that comes afterwards is bloody difficult!

Another thing that wasn't easy was getting people to read your book and do a review. I believe my book would appeal mostly to young males, not an easy target group to get to read full stop. Luckily it appealed to some female readers out there and Laura Besley has very kindly posted her review on Amazon, Goodreads and her blog. You can read it via the link below:
http://laurabesley.blogspot.hk/2014/04/language-in-blood-by-angela-lockwood.html

Working at the airport I spotted something else that used to be easy but now seems a rather complicated affair: Taking an Easyjet flight.
I haven't used Easyjet recently, but in the old days, you bought a ticket, took one item of luggage and a handluggage then you got a boarding card without a seat number and you all pilled on a quick as you could to get the best seats.
Blimey, things have changed! I now and then work in the tiny shop that oversees the easyjet gates to the UK in Terminal two. Easyjet in my view now takes just takes forever to board, they mostly start 45 to 50min before take-off. Firstly you now have to pay for hold luggage so everyone tries to get as much as possible in their hand luggage. If it is not spotted on check-in, they do catch you on boarding and the now far to big hand luggage has to go in the hold anyway. Then there is all the different types of boarders, Speedy boarder etc, it just takes forever and you now pay for the privilege to go onto the plane before the others and to select your seat. (Little secret; you all still get there at the same time!)
Easyjet is one of our biggest operators in Nice, so they must be doing something right, but the name Easyjet seems a bit ironic now.

Being a good citizen

It has been a wee while since my last blog posting; work, cat and life in general getting in the way. Cat has now been drugged with some food and is snoozing to digest the crunchies and I'm trying to ignore all other things that need to be done. I hope to get this blog written before I start work at 13.30.

Last Sunday we had local elections here and it was my and my husbands first time that we could vote in France. I had been rather puzzled by my poling card as it didn't mention when the vote was; you're just supposed to keep your eye on the news. I could have done some more research before heading out, but where is the fun in that. Learning the language is so much more challenging when you know nothing and have to ask questions to do the right thing. (Well that's my excuse for being ill informed.)

We turned up at the poling station excitedly waving our polling cards at the friendly volunteers. They requested ID which we duly produced. Then we were directed to a table with a flyer for each candidate with a bemused smile.
   'this isn't a very secret ballot' protested I.
The volunteer explained with a patient smile which he normally reserves for a not too bright child, that I had to take one of each, go behind the curtain and pick one, put it in the envelop provided and discard or take home the rest. I did as asked and put my vote in the ballot box. My chest swelled with good citizenship. We both got our polling card stamped with a date. This led to much hilarity as we speculated what would happen next.

Is the exit poll the Binbag? Does someone count the discarded flyers? (That's 80 times not you mate:))

The next round of voting is on the 30th do we get to vote again? Is it going to be a run off between the top 3 candidates?

The poling card has 12 boxes, do I get to vote more than once?

If I fill up my card do I get a free Pizza?

If I get to vote once for local and once for European elections, does this mean I have to hold on to this card for 24 years (assuming we vote once every 2 years)?

If I lose this card, do I lose my right to vote?

I promise I'll grill a french colleague before the polls open again on the 30th of March, but for the moment I like the option of voting 12 times and getting a free Pizza.

Holiday

Holiday ! This might seem a strange thing to say for someone who just started a new job, but 3 days in I can’t seem to shake this holiday feeling. It might have to do with the fact that I’ve spend my breaks in the departure lounge of terminal 2 at Nice airport. My work background noise is a mixture of easy listening and flight departure announcements. My day is spend the way I normally pass the time in departure lounges; by trying out all the perfumes. I clean the shelves and ring up purchases too, but these are minor details. 

I’m still in that honeymoon period of discovery; meeting new colleagues and learning about the products and so far I love it. I might be blogging in a few months about the smell of perfume bringing on a panic attacks or having a fear of departure lounges. I might need to wait till the last minute to clear security and then run to the departure gate on my next flight. I might breathe a sigh of relieve when I’m in the actual plane and they start taxiing. I could startle the other passengers with a wild scream when we commence our take-off; ‘Woohoo, I’ve just survived the departure lounge!’

So far so good, the only snag is the fact that at the end of the day, I don’t get to take a plane to some exiting destination. I do however get to drive my scooter home along the beach, and the weekends; well those I get to spend in the south of France, and how cool is that?

Panic

This Saturday I received an email from my new employer that I will be starting work on Tuesday. This was not totally unexpected as they said they wanted me to start as soon as possible, however the predicted time for the relevant paper work meant that we penciled in the 11th of March. So starting one week early had me a little panicked; there is still so much I wanted to do!

It was also a lovely sunny weekend and I should enjoy my last weekend of freedom, shouldn't I? I managed to have a swim, a walk and a well deserved beer on a terrace. I also did a few more hours of writing and I'm pleased to say the book is finished and I'm happy with it. When I wrote the first draft of my first book, I was pretty clueless. I knew I had a good character, but putting a book together was another matter. My friend and editor Penny guided me a lot during the following drafts and rewrites.

Book two is hopefully equally funny, I certainly think that the copy I now have on my computer is better written, thought out and testament to a more confident writer. I'm starting to learn what it takes and I'm not going to give up on publishing. I know my new job is going to keep me busy over the next eight months but I will try hard to keep my fingers on the keyboard.

It feels like I haven't achieved as much as I wanted, but when I take stock of my two months unemployment, well it's not bad. I have finished the book and I'm happy with the result and I've written 5 short stories. (they still need a bit of work but nothing a few hours without a cat distracting me won't fix!)
It might go a bit quieter but keep watching this space, there will be more releases!

Arguing with science

When I chose to make my character a vampire it was mainly to give total free reign to my fantasy. He is a vampire, they don’t exist therefore I can make him do whatever I want, right?

Not quite, you’re touching on a much used and much loved genre so there are certain myths you have to stick to. I’ve kind of stayed with the old school traits such as, sunlight, a wooden stake through the heart, and beheading kills. Cameron also has no reflection in the mirror and can’t have his picture taken. I’ve added my own slant by stating that garlic can gives a vampire a nasty rash and he can absorb language through the blood. (Hence the title)

With modern inventions we are getting on shaky ground and this has led to a few differences of opinion with my husband and my usual answer of:

                ‘He is a vampire, the laws of physics don’t apply to vampires,’ is not cutting the mustard.

I think a vampire can make a phone call but said conversation can’t be recorded. My husband launched into an explanation about sound waves and well you can’t argue with science, right?

I decided to consult the “experts”, because these days any argument is settled by the internet; and this is what the “experts” had to say on the subject:

Can they be heard over the phone?

According to Buffy the vampire slayer; the experts in modern vampires, a resounding yes. Angel too makes several phone calls in the spin off series Angel.

Can they be recorded?

According to:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OurVampiresAreDifferent 

Somewhat-common additional (mostly modern) rules for vampires are:

• Cannot be photographed or caught on video, often an extension of the "no reflection" rule. This may also be related to the silver rule; mirrors and photographic film are both (usually) made from silver.
• In Moonlight, Mick explains in a voiceover that he could not be photographed when silver was used in film, but digital cameras have changed all that.
• In the TV series Ultraviolet (unrelated to the film), the vampire hunters use sights that pretty much amount to video cameras strapped to their guns in order to tell vampire from non-vampire.
• In the anime Magical Pokaan, Pachira does not show up on a normal digital camera but is perfectly visible when viewed with an infrared camera.
• Cannot be heard over phone lines.

But according to this site my husband is right:

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/separating-myths-from-facts-in-vampire-the-requiem.html

Vampires don't show up like normal people on camera or in mirrors: Fact. Vampires show up with their features obscured in photographic media (including video footage) and in mirrors. They can temporarily counteract this effect, but by "default," their features are obscured. The same is not true for voice recordings; vampires' voices are captured normally on voice recorders.

Luckily I came across this site where you can take a quiz to see if you are a vampire. I think the following three questions vindicate me:

http://www.armory.com/tests/vampiric.html

·  Does your reflection seem to be missing when you look in the mirror?

·  Are you invisible in photos, videos, audio tapes, or any other recording medium?

·  Can you get past electronic surveillance equipment (cameras, microphones, laser trip wires, etc.)?

I see it as follows: Cameron only exist if there is blood involved, hence a human ear can hear him but a machine can't. I also think only natural things can harm him, ea sunlight, garlic, natural drugs and wooden stakes.

I think the moral of this exercise is that regarding vampires there are no facts, only myths. I think if I don’t stray too far from the myths I can do whatever the hell I want, it seems everyone else does!