What nationality are you? Are there clues you give in avatar/username or signature?

LOL

 

Honestly, I struggle to think of any sport I don't like.
At school I played on the rugby team, was lead scorer on the basketball team when we won the south Suffolk championships, I competed in the county championships at cross country running and swimming, I had successes in track athletics running all the distances from 100m to 1500m.
Out of school I also fenced, played badminton, table tennis, roller skated, canoed, swam for the town's club and played rugby for the town's third team (at 14). Sometimes between school and club I'd play 3 games of rugby a week. I also played a lot of snooker and pool.
It's possible that one of the reasons I took up juggling aged 30 and spent a decade practising hard to improve my skills was as a replacement for all the sports I was no longer able to play because my job as a chef meant I worked every weekend.

 

Wow, impressive! And you're a chef? Fantastic! What kind of cuisine do you cook?

 

All sorts from all corners of the world, depending on the job.
If pushed for a preference or ''signature dish'' I'd have to say traditional British (which has an undeserved bad reputation) and savoury pies such as steak and ale.



I have a fully equipped mobile kitchen in a 7.5 ton truck so I've done a lot of location catering for film and TV and also music festivals and major juggling conventions. Obviously that hasn't been used for a couple of years and the pandemic has hit me particularly hard. Difficult to work from home as a chef.

 

That looks delicious!

 

Yummy! I hope that as the pandemic winds down, your business recovers. There must be some eager demand from people sick and tired of having lived for two years with the restrictions, so when it all resumes, a lot of people will want your business, to catch up.

 

Pretty much the only successful countries are the ones that were former colonies of England. Spanish are yodat the worst, followed by the Portuguese, then the Spanish.

 

I was hoping that once all the lockdown restrictions were lifted we'd get a flood of enquiries from film and TV productions trying to clear the backlog of projects that had had to be postponed.
Unfortunately we've only received two, one of which was in London which we've agreed we never want to work in again due to the hours of sitting in traffic you have to endure moving from one location to the next. The days are long enough without adding two or three hours of unpaid work stuck in jams.
The other was just too big for us to handle at short notice. It was 5 months catering for big numbers but we just didn't have the time to find extra staff and buy another kitchen or two (which are as rare as rocking horse **** at the moment) which we would have needed to cope with the job. Shame, we estimated a turn over of about £750,000 but we just couldn't do it and 5 months continuous would have just about killed us as we're getting too old for that sort of thing nowadays.
The filming season is pretty much over now as winter approaches so I'm not doing a lot apart from a bit of agency work which I'm not that keen on as the 'temp' tends to get all the crappy jobs.
Oh well, it gives me plenty of time to spend on forums pointlessly trying to persuade people that they are wrong.

 

I actually posted that quote tongue in cheek but it did lead to a vigorous debate about the merits and pitfalls of the British Empire.

 

Oh boy, 750,000 sterling pounds? If you couldn't handle it on your own, you should have joined with some other chef who already had another mobile kitchen, to take on the job and split the profits!

 

I work with my former boss, I bought his last kitchen when he ''retired'' so we now work in partnership as he has the contacts and experience and I have the equipment and cooking skills.
We did consider trying to get a couple of the other location catering businesses we know on board but unfortunately they were already busy.
Besides, my partner is well past retirement age and it would have just been to much for him to take on a 5 month job of 14hr days and probably too much for me as well if I'm honest. It really does take it out of you especially when the numbers are big (100-200 people needing three full meals a day working from 6am to 8pm or longer depending on how often and how far we have to change locations).
Something more suitable will turn up come next spring I'm sure.

 

OK, of course you know better; I was just surprised that you passed on the opportunity of getting a job worth more than 1 million dollars. But if there was no way to do it and it would have affected your health, then you were right in turning it down.

 

Yeah it was a bloody shame, we calculated that after expenses we could have made something like £150-200k each in 5 months. There were just too many ways it could have gone wrong though and we had our reputation to think of as well.
You can imagine the ways of spending the money that went through my head. Early retirement to my little house in France, a sailing boat to spend a couple of years bumming around the Mediterranean in, a project to build an authentic medieval trebuchet out of solid oak, a tour of all the major castles in Europe.
Oh well, they say money can't bring you happiness. I'd like a chance to put that to the test though.

 

Nice projects. I hope you get other big jobs and make the money you need to turn these dreams into reality.

 

My philosophy has always been to try and live a champagne lifestyle on a brown ale budget.
So I've already owned a small yacht on the Norfolk broads. I've done a fairly major tour of castles around England and Wales and visited a dozen or two in France, some German ones on the Rhine when I was a kid plus some in Spain and Portugal. I've built several trebuchets including a 30' tall one with a counterweight of about a quarter of a ton that threw projectiles a hundred yards and I do already have the little house in France which I inherited from my father.
I've never had my own swimming pool to bask in while watching international football like some lucky guys though.

 

OK, so I understand, you're planning to invade some castles and you visit them to get the lay of the land before you attack, right? Once you conquer enough castles in a region, are you planning to declare independence and have your own kingdom? There's been attempts to establish micro-states in Europe before... one of these days I even watched a half-fictional, half-documentary movie about one of these, started on a sea platform right on the international waters outside of Italy's territorial waters. Italy still managed to bring it down. Kind of a shame, the guy who made it was a romantic nice dreamer.

Yes, I love my swimming pool. It is a money pit, though. I recently paid $5,000 to fix a leak and $1,100 in water bill to refill it a bunch each day while the leak was going on so that we could still use it - the repair company was busy and set a date to come and fix it, weeks away - and I'm still waiting for the next bill that will reflect all the water I spent filling it up again once the leak was patched. Not to forget all the chemicals and the cleaning company (I spend about $350 to $400 monthly on these things).

Now the pull is closed/winterized. So only next spring I'll reopen it. I wish I had a heater. I thought of installing one this season but incredibly, couldn't find any contractor willing to do the job, they were all super busy. They said because of the pandemic people stay at home more and there are more job projects like mine for backyard pools and the such so business is booming and they are booked for months. Hopefully towards the end of next season I'll find someone willing to install a gas heater, to prolong the swimming season. It takes a plumber, an electrician, and a gas line specialist, and the companies that have all three and are experienced and licensed for installing one of these babies were impossibly busy.

 

I just swim lengths if I go to the pool. I don't waste time splashing around or playing games.
I've always thought that if I ever get the chance to build my own it would be 25m long but only one lane wide and just deep enough to swim in. More of a swimming trench than pool.
Again, champagne lifestyle on a brown ale budget.

 

My house in France is in the former English territory of Aquitaine.
A lot of Brits buy houses in the area because it's very cheap. The way I see it is we are reclaiming Aquitaine for England one property at a time.

There's an old British WWII anti-aircraft platform just outside British territorial waters 12 miles off the coast of Suffolk. One guy did just that, he bought it and named it Sealand. He declared Independence and made himself King, issuing passports and selling stamps to visiting tourists. He's been left alone by the authorities but he was once raided by ''pirates'' so he had to arm himself and create an army of one for national defence.
He also sells peerages, if you want to become a Lord or Baron you can buy the title for 30 quid, a Knighthood is £100, Count £200 and Duke will cost you £500.

 

I love it. Looks like he has his own solar and wind power.

 

...and his own flag.

 

OK

OK, I'll get a knighthood and a title of Duke for 600 sterling pounds, please. What's the banking account number for me to wire the money?
Please start calling me Sir Centerfield, Duke of Sealand.

 

Your wish is my command your grace, Sir Centrefield, Duke of Sealand.
https://sealandgov.org/shop/?gclid=...5xOZ2Dq8BE-cGbxPfx5E-9f2ZaJ1BukRoCvvcQAvD_BwE
Ps you'll have to start spelling centre the proper way now you are a Duke.

 

Well, as a Duke, I'll sign a decree abolishing the silly British spelling for me and my subjects. (A Duke can do that, right? Right? I'm not very familiar with the powers granted to noblemen - I do hear that when any of my subjects gets married, I have first pick at spending the first night with the bride, right? Right? That was big motivation for me to spend the 600 pounds, so this right better be still enforced or I'll be really upset. Is there a mechanism for a refund?).

 

If you need an army (better yet navy) I'm your man. How about admiral of the fleet?

 

Prima nocta, I'm afraid that only applies to the monarch your grace.
If you wish to take advantage of that, first you will have to gather a few of your fellow noblemen, stage a rebellion, seize the crown and make yourself King.