Well, I suppose it was inevitable that it would happen.\u00a0 I can’t say I wasn’t warned.\u00a0 So many people told me that to go to a foreign place with the oil business without my wife was just asking for trouble, and they were right.\u00a0 They told me that being alone weakens ones defences, which it does.\u00a0 They warned that I would meet strange foreigners who would entice me to do things very much against my better judgement, and they were right about that too.\u00a0 They said I ran a high chance of waking up in the morning regretting what I had done the night before, but unable to do anything except face up to the consequences and try to move forward when all you want to do is curl up and die.\u00a0 And they were right about that too.\u00a0 They were right about everything.\u00a0 But I didn’t listen, and I fell into the same trap that has claimed many a poor soul, and with my experience I should really have known better.\u00a0 So there is nothing left to do but to confess.<\/p>\n
Yes, on Thursday night I met a Russian guy who had worked in Sakhalin and we went and got hammered in a local bar.\u00a0 I woke up on Friday morning cursing all things Russian and wishing my head didn’t throb so much and I didn’t have to go to work.<\/p>\n
As a rule, I avoid drinking during the week.\u00a0 I’m an all-or-nothing fella when it comes to drink, a couple of pints does nothing for me.\u00a0 It’s either get blind drunk or stick to the orange juice.\u00a0 The main reason for this is that I cannot handle hangovers unless I have nothing to do but sit and drink coffee and vegetate in front of the TV or computer.\u00a0 Having to do anything which may involve brain activity, movement, interaction with people, etc. I cannot handle, so for some years now I have avoided turning up to work hungover.\u00a0 But every Thursday our hotel lays on what they call a cocktail party, but is in actual fact an hour of free drinks by the pool to which all guests are invited.\u00a0 This sounded like a good place to meet people, so I trotted down to see what was going on.\u00a0 I joined a Frenchman I knew at one of the tables, and got introduced to a young chap called Oleg.\u00a0 Within a couple of minutes we’d established that I hadn’t forgotten any of my Russian just yet, and for the benefit of the French who were standing around, that not all Brits are linguistic retards.\u00a0 Oleg was from Moscow, but it turned out he spent four years in Sakhalin before moving back to Moscow and then eventually to Nigeria, where he works for the same company I do.\u00a0 It was good to meet somebody who knows Sakhalin, and he said he was pretty happy to be able to speak Russian again.<\/p>\n
In his 3 months there, he’s barely spoken a word of Russian with anyone.\u00a0 But that night he was to speak plenty.\u00a0 There was some professional tennis tournament going on in our hotel, probably featuring third or fourth tier players, so the gathering by the pool included a whole load of young European tennis players.\u00a0 At some point not long after I’d met Oleg, he was dragged away to meet a Belorussian tennis player who didn’t seem to speak much English; eventually I joined them.\u00a0 She seemed bored in the hotel, and so did we.\u00a0 So Oleg, who knew the lie of the land better than I, suggested we march right off to a bar nearby and drink.\u00a0 The tennis player seemed keen to leave, but not so keen to drink: she had tennis practice in the morning, which made it sound as though we were taking a schoolgirl out.\u00a0 Anyway, we tramped across sandy lots and broken pathways to a bar nearby the hotel called Michael’s.\u00a0 At least half the occupants were prostitutes, something I’m used to after seven years in the overseas oil business.\u00a0 Beer mats would have caused me more surprise.\u00a0 We found three stools at the bar and Oleg and I proceeded to order large gin and tonics, whilst our Belorussian friend ate an ice cream, which made me wonder if she actually was a schoolgirl (she wasn’t, she was well into her twenties).\u00a0 We must have been there a few hours, and all but the bar staff avoided us having heard us speaking in a strange and foreign tongue.\u00a0 I know that by the time we came to leave the bill was $35 (which meant the place was cheap, not our drinking restrained) and I was pretty drunk.\u00a0 We walked back to the hotel all agreeing that we would meet up on Saturday night.\u00a0 I have a feeling that Oleg and the Belorussian tennis player met up a lot sooner than that.\u00a0 They’d started pawing each other an hour before we left the bar, and by the time we walked back they were holding hands and in no mood to end the night there.\u00a0 Being a good wingman, I left them to it and went to bed.<\/p>\n
So, I’m in Lagos barely a week and I’ve already gotten drunk with a Russian.\u00a0 That’s not bad going.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, I suppose it was inevitable that it would happen.\u00a0 I can’t say I wasn’t warned.\u00a0 So many people told me that to go to a foreign place with the oil business without my wife was just asking for trouble, … Continue reading