The things we put in our mouths

As you'd expect food, eating and the whole restaurant experience plays quite a big part of your life when you run a training business and you are schlepping all over the world.

And things range from the sublime to the ridiculous.

For example, working in Dallas involved quite a lot of French fries (don't call them chips because you'll get a bag of crisps) and burgers.

Although there was once incident when Renee and Richard went to a Sports Bar.  All the waitresses were in excess of 6 feet tall and all wore bikinis... but that didn't influence Richard's choice of eatery. No it was the fact that there were seats outside.

Bearing in mind the temperature was in excess of 40 degrees it turned out that only R and R had opted for the al fresco option... and gawd bless 'em, the Texans felt duty bound to offer advice to the pale ones:

'Youawll get a sun tan sitting out here!'

To which the reply was: 'We know... but we're from Scotland and we'll be pale again next week!'

Notwithstanding that, the food in the States was pretty bland... the exact opposite from Malaysia, which was a little too... errr... authentic.

R and R were working for a Malaysian business that was a division of the government... and their hospitality was fabulous.  In fact, hospitality actually meant eating about 7 times a day.

The bosses of this company decided that it would be pretty good to take R and R up the Petronas Towers.  Please do remember that R and R are British and so went to join the end of the queue that was waiting for the lifts.

However, their government hosts were having none of it: the whole party was marched straight to the front of the queue with R and R apologising to everyone who made angry eye contact with them before ordering tower staff to close the Sky Bridge for half an hour.

After this wonderful trip R and R were whisked away to an authentic Malaysian restaurant.  The thing is neither of our intrepid explores are really exotic eaters but they really wanted to be polite to their hosts (and win more work at the same time)...

But we are ashamed to say Richard had to baulk at Soft Shell Crabs.  A Soft Shell Crab just looks like a crab about the size of a jam jar lid.  It's cooked and then you eat it... still looking like a crab.

All was going well until Richard lifted the crab to his mouth, pincers and eye stalks towards him and they all jiggled as though the crab was still alive and wriggling.

'What's the matter?'  Asked one of the hosts.  'You eat cows at home... why not a crab?'

'Ah,' says Richard in response, 'When I eat a cow it doesn't look like one anymore!'

Later that same evening when R and R were about to settle down for the night their room 'phone rang.  'Please come down to the foyer, our Director has a treat for you.'

They were packed into government limos and driven out to the countryside where they pulled up at a roadside fruit stall.

The Government Director handed R and R a piece of fruit with spikes on its shell.  Inside the pulp was the texture of PVA wood glue and smelt like puke.  This fruit is banned from air conditioned spaces because it makes people feel ill.  It's still a delicacy though.

The fruit was sucked off a stone roughly the size of a duck egg.  When it was eaten it immediately raised body temperature by a couple of degrees.  So Richard was handed another fruit which was much nicer to lower his temperature again.

Renee didn't quite manage to eat the fruit handed to her.