“Have you ever had an STD?”
I’m in a job interview for a Casino, and this medical questionnaire is slightly more personal than I was expecting in all honesty. The security checks and in-depth questions resemble a job application for MI5. The charming looking man in a suit sitting opposite, is looking at me expectantly over the pot of tea between us, caramelised sugar in the sugar bowl that really I want to eat, but fear it would be unprofessional to chew whilst answering. He waits, pen hovering.
The answer is no before you ask, but I’m tempted to say yes just to see his reaction. Can you not offer someone a job if they have an STD? Wouldn’t that be discriminating against your rights to promiscuity? (Might suggest that one to Cameron and Clegg, Britain loves a bit of PC bullshit.) More to the point, even if I had clymadia, herpes AND hepatitis- I could still carry a tray and pour a pint right? (Let me just clarify here- none of those bad boys are on my résumé.)
* * *
I got the job- probably on account of my clean STD record (the other applicants looked a bit ropey if I’m being honest) and I tell you now, the novelty hasn’t worn off of working somewhere where I have to get passed a fingerprint scanner to start my shift. It’s like working in Ocean’s Eleven, without the heist (and without the Vegas.) I felt like I was in a James Bond movie signing pages of a confidentiality agreement in my welcome induction, a file that had so many pages I couldn’t fit it in my handbag when I went home.
The induction included a tour-which sadly didn’t help me on my first day as I promptly got lost looking for the staff room, and a security brief showing me the doors I needed to use my individual scanner key on. (A key which I forgot on my second shift.)
The rest of the induction required me to watch a cringe-worthy ‘presentation’ on a computer in a tiny office about racism and sexism in the work place, followed by an Oscar-winning reenactment of ‘how to spot problem gamblers’ and ‘how to recognise money laundering.’ (I don’t need a class in that after my last job and dating disaster.) If I was an out of work actor, starving, and no hope of acting in anything apart from late night BBC3 cast offs ever again, I don’t think I could bring myself to participate in those videos. The over acting-individuals talk, painfully enthusiastically, saying after their tear-jerking performance; “Now, what do you think? Is Jim being rasist? Click the button to find out.” Are you rasist? Click the button to find out…
I was slightly bewildered when the man in the nice suit suddenly began to talk a lot more slowly and clearly when he sat me at the computer desk to watch these presentations- “Ok, I’m going to leave this door open for you, ok? There’s lots of air in here and you don’t have to shut the door. You can take a walk at anytime.”
I swear I ticked ‘British’ on one of the forms so I’m taken aback slightly as to why is he talking to me like I don’t comprehend the English language or that I’ve suddenly gone deaf, before remembering the MI5 medical interrogation:
-Question 48. Have you ever suffered or needed to take medication for anxiety, panic attacks, depression, claustrophobia?
Against my better judgment I admitted on this piece of paper the lesser of the evils- I said that wasn’t a big fan of small confined spaces. And now regretted it.
Apart from all that palava, I really like this job- The Casino is a good atmosphere, great people and really interesting, but since I spent 4hours signing complicated forms saying what I would and wouldn’t talk about- I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave it at that… (For now.)
* * *
I actually have two jobs down here in this lovely land of Kent while I write my little socks off- I’m not one for standing still for more than thirty seconds, and I’m not great at committing to anything more than a phone bill, so with two jobs, I’m less likely to get sick of one if I’m not stuck there 30 hours a week, and being in a new area- its more friends by my calculations.
Also, this other job- you get fed WELL. Owned by two Greek brothers, everyone in this town knows them and their restaurant is a very popular place along the seafront; the food is great, the waiters and waitresses are lovely and have all been there for years- seeing as restaurants are known for their extortionately high labour turnover- I take this as a very good sign. The building overlooks the sea and I love walking to work seeing the beach again (although yes, it is slightly different to Spain considering I’m walking in a ski jacket instead of flip flops.) Most important of all, they own the very popular nightclub upstairs where the real deal clincher is; staff get half price drinks and the first round is always on the house. I’m never leaving.
The Kent coast may not have sunshine, but it does have something here they don’t have in Spain... Seagulls.
My previous encounters with these creatures aren’t exactly positive- one particular occasion standing out where one of the ugly beasts shit on my newly highlighted hair out on a beach walk. It’s one of those moments that belong in a crappy American movie you find on the ‘comedy’ shelf of Blockbuster, not on a Sunday afternoon with your whole family laughing, you crying into your ice cream trying to get the green and white excrement out of your hair with make-up wipes. Screaming and yelling aside, seagulls are famous for stealing chips and whole sausage rolls out of unsuspecting people hands down here, so I didn’t particularly think too much of these birds, apart from debating whether to wear a hat out on any future beach walks. But it turns out, these are rather revered creatures…
I jumped in a taxi one Sunday afternoon after finishing work at the Greek brothers, heading to my cousin’s house- they’d cooked a splendid roast dinner so I wanted to get there sharpish. (This was despite the fact I’d just been given a free roast dinner at work- what can I say, I love Sunday themed food. Sunday evenings when I was a kid were infamously referred to as the ‘Sunday night scream-up’ so I was enjoying this novelty of civilized eating habits.) Sunday afternoons in this part of town have tumble weed rolling down the empty street, a cowboy whistling somewhere in the distance, so when I saw not one, but two fire engines outside Natwest bank, I presumed some serious action was taking place. The bank was opposite the cab rank, and a single solitary cab was parked up- the cab driver watching any potential drama from over the top of the sports pages of his newspaper that was comfortably resting on a rather large belly. The cabbie was thankfully as nosey as me, and pulled up to the scene with me in the back asking a female fire officer:
“Sorry love- anything interesting going on here? Bankrobbery?” He added hopefully.
The fire officer didn’t speak- but solemnly pointed upwards to the top of the bank. There, flapping and squawking in distress, caught in the netting above the satellite dish, was a seagull.
Two fire engines. One seagull.
“We’re not in Essex now…” I said.
“No Love, this is Broadstairs.” the cabbie said helpfully. The cheerful chap kept me entertained for the rest of the journey, bringing me up to date on my lacking education when it came to two important subjects; seagulls, and his grandmother. This was obviously intrinsic piece of culture that I decided I should acquaint myself with if I thought I was going to last more than a month here. (The birds not the granny.)
“Seagulls helped us win the war don’t you know.” He told me. This definitely sounds like a sentence your grandparents would say, along with ‘well when I was young we didn’t have taxis, we walked 6 miles for our roast dinner.’
“Now I’m 29 years old," he said to me, and it’s one of those statements that you’re supposed to say; ‘No! Really? I wouldn’t have said 29, 26 mate!’ But in all honesty, he looked about 37 with the bald batch and the beer belly so I said nothing. He carried on, filling the empty pause;
“And my Nan, she loves me she does, apple of her eye and all that, never yelled at me once in my 27 years. Apart from this one time I saw a seagull eating some food out of a bin down here, and I went to kick it. She smacked me so hard I saw stars.”
I’m not sure where he’s going with this but I let him continue.
“And after she stopped boxing my ears in, she said ‘Billy, don’t ever let me see you do that again, seagulls helped us win the war you know.’ Now my grandmother used to do the bleep bleep beelping down at Dover during the war, (I’m going to take a stab in the dark here- Morse code?) and you could always tell when the boys were on their way because the seagulls came first- they were the warning sign. Also,” he said, turning around, eyes completely off the road to emphasise this next point, “Seagulls brought down more enemy planes than the British forces- they’d get caught in the propellers and bring them down.”
He turned around again, and said quietly to the coastal road; “They gave their lives for this country they did, them seagulls.”
Wow.
There’s not much I can say when presented with a fact like that and so the rest of the journey is respectfully quiet as we both obviously ponder such a statement. I tip him well, and send my regards to his beloved Granny.
So we have war-winning, Hitler defeating race of seagulls round here- Essex and vajazzled nights painting the town red (or orange to be more precise) suddenly seem dull in comparison. The other interesting thing about this area I discovered is Dreamland. Although no one that lives here thinks it’s particularly interesting, giving away either my 'tourist vibe,' or my ever-prevailing 'looser vibe.' Margate, the neighboring town, was home to one of the biggest theme parks in the country- in the 1950’s being second to Alton towers. From what I could see when I went exploring, it was just a massive empty concrete slab of land in front of the sea. All the rides were gone apart from one rollercoaster standing in the middle with a large hold burned in the middle. So I did what all good loosers do- I went to the library. Hidden in the shelves was a little gem of a book called ‘Remembering Dreamland’ full of beautiful black and white pictures of an impressive and busy theme park, Victorian families dressed so formally in suits and dress coats, women in full bathing suits that covered enough skin to be classified as wet suits rather than bikinis. Now, there was nothing. I thought it was so sad- this town had kind of died with the theme park- the rides slowly been sold off, the theme park getting smaller and more empty, as people in the eighties discovered the package holiday, and Benidorm. The Victorian wooden rollercoaster; a grade two listed attraction built in the 1920’s, had been burnt by vandals (insurance job you’ll hear people mutter) and so now Margate has a rather empty errie sea front, like a ghost town. The front line has big empty arcades; machines with no toys in them, fish and chip shops bordered up, ice cream parlors empty, the iconic ‘dreamland’ sign switched off, so they’re just empty lightbulbs on a fading wall.
But it’s a perfect place for a budding writer- stories were brewing by the minute, and though I happily penned them down in my spot in the local library, I wasn’t best pleased to discover it doubled up as a Giro collection point, social services office AND the job centre. Let’s not be prude in imagining the variety of people that hassled me all afternoon.
* * *
I’ve decided in my rambling and wandering into this weird and wonderful place that the universe wants me to be here. And I’ve come to this conclusion from the fact that I seem to know far more people here than I ever thought possible since I’ve only ever been here a couple of times, and ‘Thanet,’ covering Broadstairs, Ramsgate and Margate, isn’t exactly a hive of activity. (Although N Dubz did recently perform at the local stadium…)
This includes a guy that I made friends in Switzerland two years ago- he was a seasonaire with my brother and I spend a seriously fun-filled week falling over all day, then falling over all night- one due to appalling ski skills, the other to Swiss beer. Turns out this guy is from Margate and on discovery that I had obscurely ended up moving to his home town, I convinced him to get on a seven hour bus ride from Bristol where he now lives. To be fair, he comes home occasionally anyway to walk his blind dog, say hello to his brother and give his mother a bag of washing, and I later discovered he had a hidden agenda anyhow- he’s off to South America and decided that I too must venture to this amazing land of the unknown. He did his very best to convince me to join in, but I won in distracting him by introducing him to the wonder that is my half price drinks ticket at work…
In addition to this ‘random-people-I-know’ list is a girl I worked with in a pub in Staines, a pub that used to be a town hall- the very same town hall that Ali G chained himself outside of. (This is my one claim to fame, don’t take it away from me.) I was surprised and happy to find my old friend here and furthermore then accidently found a girl here that I went to university with, and a guy that remembers me serving him his dinner when I worked in a little restaurant in Egham. Egham is a place so tiny, obscure and weirdly sweet in a million odd ways, there’s not enough room to go into it here. If you went to Royal Holloway Uni, you’ll understand. Anyway the point is it’s a small world, and more than that, a small world brushed traces of fate…
So why does the universe want me to be in this obscure seaside town so much? I guess We'll have to wait and see…
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