I was having a drink the other night with a rather nice young woman who works at one of the Embassies. She mentioned that she was the designated 'duty officer' for the next few days. This means that she gets to carry around a special phone - which must never, ever be muted or turned off - which anguished citizens can contact via a special number (if they can discover what the number is!!), as a sort of emergency helpline service. (Of course, if you find yourself in some dire predicament, you can't expect much help from your Embassy beyond a few soothing platitudes. I have bitter experience of this myself.)
Having learned that my friend was currently the go-to gal for citizens-in-crisis, I couldn't resist firing off a few jokey text messages (to her own phone, not the 'special' helpline one).
"Help! I am a prisoner in a Shanxi brick kiln. And that nasty man has taken my passport away."
("Haha!" she replied.)
"And then the lady from the Embassy laughed at me! You'll be sorry when the story gets into the papers."
Then, over the weekend:
"Day 3 of my captivity. I have now made 7,058 bricks by hand. I have blisters. No sign of a special forces rescue team yet! Is this what we pay our taxes for??"
"You don't pay any taxes, do you?" teased the Embassy gal curtly.
"Oh, so I'm being discriminated against because of my lifestyle choices, am I??"
This one could run and run.......
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The Embassy Gal actually started "checking in" on me, which was rather sweet.
We ended up with....
I was "sprung" 2 days ago by an itinerant philanthropist, a Mr Rambo.
Mr Rambo and I will be appearing together on the Jay Leno TV show next week to talk about our experiences. The moment of your come-uppance is at hand, Embassy Girl!
We've sold the film rights to Hollywood! Mr Rambo thinks we can get Angelina Jolie to play Unhelpful Embassy Lady. He will play himself. I'm hoping we can get Ewan McGregor to be me.
Daniel Day-Lewis is interested! He's already building a brick kiln in his backyard.
("DDL wants to play YOU?' goaded the EG, disbelievingly.)
Well, no. It seems he's more interested in playing the Chinese gang boss. He's hired a Shanxi dialect coach and is planning to have surgery on his eyelids.
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