New life in the old town

Colonel Bryce Sowler, 41, but only 22 due to the mechanical replacement of his heart and brain by Plumfield Enterprises, owned by the same company, Hawthorne PLC, that was funding the mission. Bryce was in charge of a team of 10-various skills and qualifications made them fit for the mission-they were to check on the progress of a group of people dumped on a habitable planet a few million miles from Earth. The hybrid plutonium-neptunium engines on the 489 would make the journey possible. The planet was named 'Dawson's Folly' after the British explorer, Lloyd Dawson who discovered it. He had died whilst trying to negotiate a series of hot springs in a volcanic region, misjudging the ground and falling straight in. 'Mullins, can I have a diagnostic on the engines?'  Spoke Bryce into the intercom. A slight pause, then a crackling. 'Functioning fine.' A pause. 'Don't get all technical with me Mullins.' The Colonel, with a smile.  In fac...

Simon, 31, an ex soldier from Leicestershire, has now finished teaching in Asia. Specifically, had now finished teaching in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The temperature is normally around 30 degrees. The former Marine knew he'd miss the warmth, would miss the job opportunities afforded to him in this distant country, formally known as the Khmer Empire, where Thailand's legal and administrative terms come from, not dissimilar to the way England took on French words after the Norman conquest. The last wage packet, bursting with $100 bills was collected with a reluctant relish-the English graduate knew it was the last wage from the prestigious business school, and had to make the money last for when he returned to the U.K. Alas, it was eaten into pretty damn quick-there were problems with the bus; late, arriving at the wrong place, so the veteran paid for a flight to Bangkok. This was over $100.     The Paradox was that Simon had plenty of employment opportunitie...

          Seeing the recent work experience on my CV, I can imagine potential employers think I'm some backpacker chancer looking for a part-time gig. Not true. I need to put my most recent work experience on my CV, complete with foreign name references whose addresses have strange, alien postcodes, located in faraway places. When it comes to writing a CV, I won't lie. Despite the teaching stuff, I've got a decent back-log of catering experience (over 5 years) but the employers just see the most recent stuff, the foreign language teaching. It wasn't some 'Mickey Mouse' gig. It was early starts, planning lessons, working in a foreign land, having to adapt to everything. The Cambodia part of the experience was not at all easy-5:30 am starts, working 7 days a week.                                                         ...

                                                 I CAN'T AFFORD BREAKFAST     NUMPOW. (sic)That's how to pronounce it-just one of a variety of Cambodian Street pastries. NUMPOW are hollow and shallow fried. If I was having a good day and good afford it, I'd have 4, bought from a street stall in my neighborhood near street 172 in Phnom Penh. Before eating them, I'd cycle 4.5 miles to my private student's residence, to build up an appetite, even though I was already hungry. On some occasions I'd had no food the night before, and had to subside on tap water because bottled water was out of my price bracket. Sometimes to provide energy, I would pour sugar into the water. When a person is short of food, and doesn't eat often, you can feel the difference sugar makes. You 'Come up'-the thoughts are more clear. But I digress.         ...