Embra!

Prague trip for three days was quite nice, considering it was on a jobbie. US-style timetabling (8am-5.30pm) is becoming increasingly pervasive, and when you get to be a big cheese you're rewarded with pre-meeting meetings from 6.30 am. I can't wait to be promoted!

As usual you don't have time to see the city, but a native friend's shown me around before. Prague boasts geographical interest (the meander of the Vlatava, the hills), exciting history (both ancient and modern) and a well-preserved mediaeval centre. Crossroads of Europe. In the taxi to and from the airport, even the suburban estate highrises have the architectural quirks and human utility (e.g. balconies) of Bauhaus.

Of social interactions, the notables were a political fight with a colleague-peer and a professional one with my boss.

The colleague is a medical doctor in his 30's; westernised Syrian, recently separated, exploited in a technical job far below his qualifications and drunk. Not drunk all the time- just when we had our row. In the afternoon he'd confessed he was homophobic, for which I ripped the piss out of him, pointing out that gay men lessened his competition to snag girls. We talked some about middle eastern culture, philosophy and politics, which was interesting and educative for me. But in the evening he got steamboats and tried to tell me some Africans are cannibals and not really human, which made me talk over him and raise my voice. Very later (him steamboats +++) he started on about 'the Jews' and, despite my warning shots, proved incapable of discriminating Jewish individuals from the State of Israel. He left to hunt girls after an earful from me.

The fight with the boss is currently redacted, but no steamboats- just some honest interchange. It started with mutual discomforts about some dodgy practice at the Slug Factories, progressed to pay discussions and ended with me asking, "What does that mean? Are you trying to threaten me?", and terminating the discussion. He was still trying inanely to switch tack from menacing to supplicative mode as I walked off.

It was lovely to get home to Embra airport, comfortingly raining stair-rods even though it's late June. Boss rapidly sent damage-limitation email and wants an off-site meeting next week to discuss 'shared goals'. That's fine. I'll attend, but Slug Factories talk is ten-a-penny but written commitments scanty.

Regardless, I'm the Daddy now.