Any old promotor drivers around

[sandway]

Jazzandy:
The man himself at the Tehran International Fair.

Am I looking a bit frazzled in that photo. Surely not but I am on the ELE International stand at the Tehran Trade Fair and maybe I was thinking of an earlier show in Baghdad.

ELE were manufacturers of construction materials testing equipment and were always good customers of ours. At this particular Fair in Baghdad we had shipped four or five machines for them to be exhibited on their stand. The trailer had been loaded by our yard boys back in the UK and one of the ELE wooden cases was right on top. When it came to unloading we manoeuvred the forklift into position and slid the case onto it not realising that it was heavier one end than the other. In fact their was a big lump of concrete on its base to stabilise the machine. We inched the case forward and just as we cleared the side of the trailer gravity took over. The wooden case flipped itself upright, freed itself from the prongs of the forklift and threw itself to the ground. As it hit the ground there was the sickening sound of equipment being pulverised into submission from within. Oh bother. Someones not going to be happy. I had a peek inside and the machine looked a mess. How am I going to explain this little one I thought! However, when the ELE boys arrived and I had told them what had happened and apologised they were very good. They managed to tidy the machine up and still exhibited it on their stand but there was no way that machine was ever going to test anything again.

[sandway]

Following on from my recent post recounting the “sojourn” my wife and I took on a trip to Yugo back in 83 I have a few more photos from that trip. Once again I apologise for a lack of images of lorries or drivers but it does record the places some of us visited even when wives and girlfriends were not with us.

[sandway]

When I hear people talk of the Beautiful Danube I think back to the times when we tipped at the steelworks in Smederevo, fifty klicks south east of Belgrade. The steelworks were built on the right bank of the river and was one of the ugliest and most polluted places we had to go. I can’t imagine its any better now.

[mushroomman]

Thanks for sharing Brian, as always there are some evocative photos there.
After all these years I have only just realised that the correct pronunciation for Celje is Celle and not Cel je.
I always thought that Slovenia was by far the best state in Yugoslavia as the people seemed to be friendlier and the place always looked tidier than the rest of the country.
Can you remember passing through some of those villages, usually on a Friday and seeing a suckling pig roasting on a spit often but not always outside a restaurant.
One of Dows regular backloads was from the Tesla Lightbulb factory in Pancevo which was about 10 miles North East of Belgrade, about 30 miles from Smederevo and we used to clear customs at the docks on The Danube near Pancevo. If you started loading at 7 a.m. then you could finish doing your customs by lunch time, how good was that.
It’s strange but I can still remember sitting in a café in Pancevo and working out what all the pictures meant on a large poster that was on one of the café walls. It was showing you what you should do in case of a nuclear attack.
It’s amazing what memories somebodies old photos can bring back.

Regards Steve.

[jazzandy]

Martin Hudson of Orient Exhibitions relaxing in the Hilton hotel after a long day at the Tehran Fairground.

[sandway]

mushroomman:
Thanks for sharing Brian, as always there are some evocative photos there.
After all these years I have only just realised that the correct pronunciation for Celje is Celle and not Cel je.
I always thought that Slovenia was by far the best state in Yugoslavia as the people seemed to be friendlier and the place always looked tidier than the rest of the country.
Can you remember passing through some of those villages, usually on a Friday and seeing a suckling pig roasting on a spit often but not always outside a restaurant.
One of Dows regular backloads was from the Tesla Lightbulb factory in Pancevo which was about 10 miles North East of Belgrade, about 30 miles from Smederevo and we used to clear customs at the docks on The Danube near Pancevo. If you started loading at 7 a.m. then you could finish doing your customs by lunch time, how good was that.
It’s strange but I can still remember sitting in a café in Pancevo and working out what all the pictures meant on a large poster that was on one of the café walls. It was showing you what you should do in case of a nuclear attack.
It’s amazing what memories somebodies old photos can bring back.

Regards Steve.

Yes, Slovenia always seemed to be an odd fit into the Yugoslavia federation we knew under Tito. Independence was the best thing that happened to it after the breakup. We did a fair bit of work in the area but unfortunately remember little of it now. I do remember loading at a factory in Maribor with 20 tons of black plastic bin liners on one of our straitframes. Very quick load and customs clearance and well back into Austria that night via the border at Bad Radkersberg. Didn’t like the main border at all.

I also remember loading one day at Osijek which is further east up towards the Hungarian border. Its in Croatia but in our day was just Yugoslavia. I had on one of our supercubes and was told to pick up a full load of matches at the Drava Match factory. Sounds good I thought. A nice flying load. How wrong could I be. Eighteen ton and (luckily) couldn’t get it all on. There were complaints at the factory because of this. They said they had loaded a Dutch trailer the week before and he took the lot. I always thought our supercubes were built to the maximum allowed or maybe the Dutch one was overspec. Whilst my trailer was being loaded I was given a tour of the factory. Production started there in 1856 and was one of the largest factories in Osijek. It’s no longer there, maybe to do with people smoking less. The production process involved large tree trunks arriving at one end of the factory and little boxes of matches exiting the other. After loading I had to clear customs in Zagreb which was a bit of a bind but that was one of the things you had to put up with in those days.

I also remember going to a factory further east than Osijek, can’t remember the name of the town. I had to deliver a large drum of grease. There I found two englishmen erecting a “Jaffa Cakes” production line that had been shipped out from England. Unfortunately I was a few days early and production hadn’t started which was a shame as I love “Jaffa Cakes”. However after that I often bought my supplies whilst in the country but after a couple of years the quality seemed to have dropped off and I gave up on them.

[efes]

Does anyone remember loading raw bleeding sheepskins soaked in salt and taking then to Yugo (was it Bitola in Macedonia? ) for processing? The trailer was disgusting as it oozed blood and after parking up each night there was a neat rectangle of blood marking the ■■■■■■■■■■■■ with the length of the trailer. The smell was awful

I remember parking up outside the factory late one afternoon and there were two old boys in uniform wearing little forage caps (like the RAF forage caps) sitting in a small wooden hut outside the gates of the factory. They were very kind old chaps and invited me into the hut for a beer and some bread, peppers and sliced sausage. After a while they asked if I was married - I told them I wasn’t - and they called someone on the phone… Shortly afterwards a giggling woman with teeth like jaws arrived and was roughly deposited on my lap and the old boys, with rather vigorous hand gestures told me what I should do… I declined the very kind offer…

Next day as the trailer was being unloaded there was a ganger who spoke fluent Australian English - he told me many of them had left Yugloslavia to work in Australia - asked me why I hadn’t ***** the woman from the kitchens that they’d provided? Apparently she was keen to oblige me. I had to explain that I preferred to choose my own women…

The trailer was thoroughly jet washed to remove the salt, blood and smell on site…

Whether it was the same trip I don’t know but I had to load fridges in Bitola to backload to the UK… At the factory I asked the workers if there was anywhere to eat and, after a long discussion, I was given a slip of paper and taken to what I presume was the factory canteen. My slip of paper entitled me to a bowl of cabbage soup and a hunk of bread. Afterwards I discovered that the factory was a prison…

[sandway]

Jazzandy. Your picture of Martin taken in his room at the Esteghlal Hotel (not Hilton by then) in Tehran reminds me of a bit of fun we had one day. It was mid 80’s and Promotor had a few rooms there. Now, if you stood on the pavement out by the Expressway and looked up at the hotel the first thing you saw were the flagpoles. Many of them had bullet holes in them as at some stage during the revolution someone had shot up the hotel from the road. The hotel of course was the Hilton and a symbol of Americanisation in their country. When we returned to Tehran a few years later and stayed at the hotel the damaged rooms had been patched up but not the wired glass on the front of the balconies. We found a bullet hole in ours as seen in the attached photo. One evening we were in our room having a laugh with Martin when we mentioned the bullet hole. Thats nothing he said. Follow me. So we trooped back to his room and out onto the balcony where he proudly boasted that he had five in his!!! As you know Jazzandy it was always difficult to outdo Martin.

Of course the side of the hotel that was shot up was the north side. The one facing the mountains. It was on this side that any lady guests were given rooms. They couldn’t be given rooms on the south side as it overlooked the swimming pool and they would see men in their swimming trunks. Bet they didn’t worry about that before the revolution.

[sandway]

Efes:
Does anyone remember loading raw bleeding sheepskins soaked in salt and taking then to Yugo (was it Bitola in Macedonia? ) for processing? The trailer was disgusting as it oozed blood and after parking up each night there was a neat rectangle of blood marking the ■■■■■■■■■■■■ with the length of the trailer. The smell was awful

I remember parking up outside the factory late one afternoon and there were two old boys in uniform wearing little forage caps (like the RAF forage caps) sitting in a small wooden hut outside the gates of the factory. They were very kind old chaps and invited me into the hut for a beer and some bread, peppers and sliced sausage. After a while they asked if I was married - I told them I wasn’t - and they called someone on the phone… Shortly afterwards a giggling woman with teeth like jaws arrived and was roughly deposited on my lap and the old boys, with rather vigorous hand gestures told me what I should do… I declined the very kind offer…

Next day as the trailer was being unloaded there was a ganger who spoke fluent Australian English - he told me many of them had left Yugloslavia to work in Australia - asked me why I hadn’t ***** the woman from the kitchens that they’d provided? Apparently she was keen to oblige me. I had to explain that I preferred to choose my own women…

The trailer was thoroughly jet washed to remove the salt, blood and smell on site…

Whether it was the same trip I don’t know but I had to load fridges in Bitola to backload to the UK… At the factory I asked the workers if there was anywhere to eat and, after a long discussion, I was given a slip of paper and taken to what I presume was the factory canteen. My slip of paper entitled me to a bowl of cabbage soup and a hunk of bread. Afterwards I discovered that the factory was a prison…

Nice little anecdote there Efes. You always did have women throwing themselves at you. Twas your boyish charm. I never did those skins or load fridges back from Yugo but I did handle the fridges often. Not sure if you remember or know but Promotor bought fifty or sixty of them from the importer to be hired out at the Baghdad Fair in the early 80’s. Only problem was they were quite large and not all that reliable. After a few trips to Baghdad and back they were knackered and we had to dump them and buy new, smaller and more reliable ones.

[jazzandy]

I shared that room with Martin at the Esteglal.
The balcony was riddled with bullet holes. If you remember things were quite strict so soon after the revolution and revolutionary guards were hovering all over the place including the fairground. We even had visits from heavily guarded groups of Evin prisoners. Most off putting and your client Tecquipment had girls removed from their stand and taken to the local nick.

Martin was a heavy metal freak and had loads of loud music playing (completely forbidden) away in the room I was panic stricken that we’d get run in especially as we had room service for every meal and Martin never bothered to turn his CD player off when the waiters would wheel the trolleys in. We also had a source of illlicit alcohol and used to place the empty bottles in the Islamic toilet at the end of the landing.

Luckily we got away with it and never got lashed ( apart that is from an excess of said illegal alcohol).

[vodka_cola_cowboy]

Efes:
Does anyone remember loading raw bleeding sheepskins soaked in salt and taking then to Yugo (was it Bitola in Macedonia? ) for processing? The trailer was disgusting as it oozed blood and after parking up each night there was a neat rectangle of blood marking the ■■■■■■■■■■■■ with the length of the trailer. The smell was awful

I remember parking up outside the factory late one afternoon and there were two old boys in uniform wearing little forage caps (like the RAF forage caps) sitting in a small wooden hut outside the gates of the factory. They were very kind old chaps and invited me into the hut for a beer and some bread, peppers and sliced sausage. After a while they asked if I was married - I told them I wasn’t - and they called someone on the phone… Shortly afterwards a giggling woman with teeth like jaws arrived and was roughly deposited on my lap and the old boys, with rather vigorous hand gestures told me what I should do… I declined the very kind offer…

Next day as the trailer was being unloaded there was a ganger who spoke fluent Australian English - he told me many of them had left Yugloslavia to work in Australia - asked me why I hadn’t ***** the woman from the kitchens that they’d provided? Apparently she was keen to oblige me. I had to explain that I preferred to choose my own women…

The trailer was thoroughly jet washed to remove the salt, blood and smell on site…

Whether it was the same trip I don’t know but I had to load fridges in Bitola to backload to the UK… At the factory I asked the workers if there was anywhere to eat and, after a long discussion, I was given a slip of paper and taken to what I presume was the factory canteen. My slip of paper entitled me to a bowl of cabbage soup and a hunk of bread. Afterwards I discovered that the factory was a prison…

Yes. The bloody sheepskins. I loaded them a few times. We loaded in Dudley. The whole factory there stank. The ground was covered in a blackish, greeny slurry. Your wheels sprayed it up onto the truck and you got it all over your boots when you had to walk around the yard. Across the road from the factory there were residential houses. Imagine what it must have been liker living there. Especially in the summer.
High on the walls of the factory they had what looked like a series of speakers fitted. They were really some form of pump that were pumping out air freshener to try to combat the stench. But it did not work.
You are right Efes. They were delivered to Bitola.
Besides the sheepskins I made a number of deliveries to Ohrid. Normally chemicals. It was usually the last drop on a multi drop load. From there I would go back to Bitola and load washing machines. The yard at the washing machine factory was a massive scrap yard. That too was manned by Aussie - Dobra’s. I always wondered why, after they had lived in Australia, they would want to go back to Bitola.

[efes]

Jazzandy:
Two highly motivated Promotor operatives on site in Baghdad. Phil Dowrick and Dave Lloyd.

I remember the highly motivated site reps working in Moscow and how I had to carry one home just about every other night and then sneak into the National Hotel on Red Square past the babushka that had a desk on each floor of the hotel controlling access to the rooms, to kip in his room. Most nights I managed to sneak in. Highly Motivated Rep appeared not to be aware of - or need - the bed so I took it…

I remember the same highly motivated site reps not arriving at Sokolniki Park for customs clearance until about 11am. The very polite Russian customs officer, the driver (me) and unloading gang having waited patiently since 7am… They weren’t my favourites.

Does anyone remember the Londoner (definitely a “geezer”) called “Barry” who worked for Isvestia, the Russian newspaper?

He had a deal with Staggie and he invited me to dinner at The National and asked if Promotor was paying for my food. I admitted they weren’t and he said that he’d feed me and put it on their bill. I think Staggie had funded Barry as he was always asking where the site reps were because they were looking for him and he made a point of being somewhere else… I remember the meal at The National as being one of the best meals I’ve ever had - even to this day. Truly superb and amazing that it was in Communist Russia! Even better when Staggie was paying for it.

After dinner I was invited to go back to his flat to meet the girls, “Mrs W” and “prison Nat”. Boshing Pete from Kepstowe used to visit his flat… That may have been the reason I declined as I knew about his “hobby” - but later I met the very lovely “Natalya” (indeed) and a friend at the Meshdinarodnya Hotel who invited me back to her place. It was a tempting offer - I had not immediately linked her with Barry - until I was invited by her to bring some gifts - or if no gifts were available money would do…

A year or two later after I’d left Promotor I was in my office (Cintrex, David Carroll ex-Promotor) one day when Arther Blackmore (also ex-Promotor) threw over his old Sunday paper at lunch for me to pass that time while I ate my sandwiches. There, centre page, was a photo of Barry and the girls. Apparently it was a KGB blackmail ring and they’d been blackmailing various exhibitors - such as the fellow they newspaper had named as “The Midland Bonk” (the Midland Bank rep). Somewhere I still have those newspapers (the story was serialised over two weeks).

I met all sort of interesting people in Moscow. After Cintrex I later ended up in Moscow around 1990 working on a project for a certain exhinition company at a US geotechnical show with a view to living in Moscow and running their office. Moscow still had the burned and blackened Whitehouse and all the buses used as barricades were still in the streets and hadn’t been cleared up from their recent revolution, the fall of the USSR. I had my own brutal looking, shaven headed monster bodyguard who drove me in what was a brand new shiny blue Lada. After 6 weeks every panel of the Lada was covered in dents including the bonnet which has obviously had a body roll on it which has crushed it.

A 6 week stint with all the office staff actively working against me refusing to translate for me or do the customs docs which I produced myself on my own laptop with a Russian keyboard and dictionary pianstakingly grinding through the paperwork every night for about a week or so before the show. I was exhausted - to say the least. I found out why later when I saw that it was set up to do a deal in Red Mercury rather then service exhibitions. I saw my ex-company on TV on Despatches and how Red Mercury was probably a KGB sting.

Life is pretty dull these days.

[mushroomman]

Brilliant Efes, thanks for sharing it with us.
I am pleased to say that I never ever carried a load of skins but your story about the fridges in Yugo have just prodded my old memory bank.

[sandway]

Marvellous recollections of days gone by Efes. Some time back I posted of my trips to Moscow mid 80’s. Only did the two and didn’t want to do more. Not my scene. The first trip I stayed at the Cosmos Hotel with Staggie and the second trip I stayed at the The Meshdinarodnya Hotel which I preferred. I met Barry a number of times during my time in Moscow. It always seemed odd to me that he survived there. He told me he was doing some translation work but never went into much detail. He was living in the National Hotel and was very well known by all the girls on the game at that time. He would boast (often) of his prowess in bed and the duration of his love ins. Three days or more, twenty four hours a day non stop bonking. Only dragging themselves out of bed for a bathroom break or to grab refreshments. Must admit to look at him you wouldn’t have thought he had it in him!!!

Never thought I would see the name of Arthur Blackmore turn up on here, or anywhere else come to that. Arthur and Liz Calderwood were very close for a few years after she and Peter (Mr Promotor) were divorced. We often saw him around then one day he was installed in our office in Tunbridge Wells. Peter explained that he had offered him some work after Liz had approached him. Think she was getting fed up with him sitting around doing nothing. Now Arthurs job was to drum up business for the company. He spent all his time on the phone and had a very good chat up spiel combined with a very Old Etonian accent and from what we could hear, very believable. He would always go direct to the top. Why talk to the export sales manager when you could talk on level terms to the Managing Director or even President of BP or ICI or The Welcome Foundation. Arthur certainly sounded the part in the mornings it was the afternoon where he came unstuck. After a long liquid lunch it was all downhill for the rest of the day. During his time with Promotor he never got one job and he was a joke around the office. After a few months Peter had to say his time was up. He had to tell Liz he had tried to help Arthur but he was now a liability.

I know my “little grey cells” let me down quite often now but I can’t picture David Carroll in the Promotor scene. I know his name well enough but just can’t remember him. Its terrible getting old (er).

[mushroomman]

About 1981 I had been home for a couple of days and phoned the office to see if they had anything for me. I was told yes come in in the morning as we will have a loaded trailer for you for delivery to Novo Mesto in Yugoslavia. I went in the following day and picked up my paperwork, running money and a twelve page T.I.R. carnet which had been filled in as I had been told to go via West Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. I then went outside to check the trailer, even though it had been fastened up ready for the road I still opened it up to make sure that the load was secure. The trailer contained a full load of small portable 12 volt/240 volt fridges which had been loaded somewhere in North Wales. I coupled up to the trailer and Wayne, a young lad who worked in the warehouse came over with a message to say that I must call back into the office before I left the yard.
In the office I was told that there was a change of plan, I was given an address and told that I had to call into Munich to collect some new paperwork for the importer. I asked why I couldn’t go through Austria and straight into Yugo as this was now going to put about another five hours on to my journey and I was told not to worry as I would now be getting an extra continental night out so off I went.
I arrived in Munich two days later and parked near a packing agent where we used to reload M.A.N. parts from and then I got a taxi into the centre of Munich. The office that I was looking for was on the second floor of an old building near The Hoffbrau House and if I remember correctly the company was called something like World Trade Imports and Exports, Geneva, Switzerland.
In their office was a very smart looking lady who was about in her fifties and spoke perfect English with a very slight French accent. There was a guy in his mid twenties who was also dressed very tidily wearing a suit who could have been her son. I gave her all my paperwork which she looked at and then passed it on to the guy who started typing away. She offered me a coffee which she made and asked how my trip was going and when I thought that I would arrive at the Adria caravan factory in Novo Mesto, in what is now Slovenia.
After about twenty minutes the guy came over with several sheets of paper work which the women checked and sealed them into a large brown envelope. Could you give this to the office at the factory when you deliver the load she asked, I said that I would and she then said can you sign this receipt for 100 Deutsch Marks which was about twenty five pounds Stirling back then. I asked her what was that for and she said “it’s to show our appreciation for all the inconvenience that we have caused you”. I didn’t want to cause any trouble so I quickly accepted the DM 100 and got a taxi back to the truck.
When I arrived back at the truck I opened the envelope to see what was written on the new paper work but the weights, value, number of items etc. all corresponded with my carnet and my C.M.R. and so I carried on and had no further problems.
About a year later I was running with a subbie called Howard Hughes who always used to pull for Dow. We had parked up for the night somewhere and Howard asked me if I had ever done a job to Novo Mesto with caravan fridges. I said yes and told him about the D.M. 100, he smiled and told me about what had happened to him when he went to that office in Munich.
He was running with another two drivers and they were all told to take their paperwork into Munich even though they were travelling through the Commie Block. The reasons for going this way was because Austria had made a steep increase to their transit tax for foreign vehicles passing through Austria even though there was a shortage of Austrian permits at the time.
Howard had suggested that there was no point in all of them going into Munich and suggested that as he was the subbie and he would have to pay for the extra diesel that he was going to use one of the other two drivers should go and they would all meet up at the Czech border. The other two drivers, Lee and Tony disagreed for some reason and one of them suggested that they all pulled straws. Howard got the short straw and decided to leave them at Cologne and push on without them but he took their shipping notes with him.
When Howard arrived in the office in Munich the lady asked him where the other two drivers were but Howard told her that they had driven through the night and that he had brought their paperwork with him. When the paperwork was completed she then asked Howard to sign the accounts book for 300 Deutsch Marks and would he be kind enough to give the other two drivers 100 D.M. each.
Howard met Tony and Lee at the border that afternoon but he said that he never mentioned anything to them about the 300 D.M. that he had been given.

Howard, he was probably checking how much of his D.M. 300 he had left. Does anybody recognise the lad with the glasses as I have no idea who he is.

[bullitt]

Nice little tale Steve, telling how it was back in the day! Hope you are well.

[sandway]

Great story there mushroomman. Live it up like a lord in the commie block with 300 D.M. We also tipped regularly in Novo Mesto. Never full loads just a couple of pallets. Selotape if I’m not mistaken.

Have attached a photo taken I am fairly sure in the exhibition grounds in Brno in 78. The Scannie 110 was about to be got rid of and I was sorry to see it go but it had been trashed internally by a succession of drivers. Whilst I was at the Fair I got hold of some bright green carpet and covered the whole of the inside of the cab. Certainly cleaned it up but you had to go to bed with your sunglasses on.

When I left the fairground about 0730hrs in the morning I was immediately pulled over by the law who were sitting in their little car only two hundred metres up the road. I was asked to turn off the engine and get down. I was then handed one of those newfangled things at the time, a breatherliser and told to blow into it. I pointed out it was early morning but blew into it all the same whilst the law made comments about Johny Walker and Wisky. Of course I had nothing to worry about but just as I was about to leave one of the cops gave me an unopened breatherliser kit and said I should use it in the morning if I had been on the Wisky the night before. I was almost touched by his concern and generosity but not quite as I’m sure he was the guy who done me on the way down for speeding.

[efes]

Jazzandy:
Does anyone remember the Londoner (definitely a “geezer”) called “Barry” who worked for Isvestia, the Russian newspaper?

He had a deal with Staggie and he invited me to dinner at The National and asked if Promotor was paying for my food. I admitted they weren’t and he said that he’d feed me and put it on their bill. I think Staggie had funded Barry as he was always asking where the site reps were because they were looking for him and he made a point of being somewhere else… I remember the meal at The National as being one of the best meals I’ve ever had - even to this day. Truly superb and amazing that it was in Communist Russia! Even better when Staggie was paying for it.

After dinner I was invited to go back to his flat to meet the girls, “Mrs W” and “prison Nat”. Boshing Pete from Kepstowe used to visit his flat… That may have been the reason I declined as I knew about his “hobby” - but later I met the very lovely “Natalya” (indeed) and a friend at the Meshdinarodnya Hotel who invited me back to her place. It was a tempting offer - I had not immediately linked her with Barry - until I was invited by her to bring some gifts - or if no gifts were available money would do…

A year or two later after I’d left Promotor I was in my office (Cintrex, David Carroll ex-Promotor) one day when Arther Blackmore (also ex-Promotor) threw over his old Sunday paper at lunch for me to pass that time while I ate my sandwiches. There, centre page, was a photo of Barry and the girls. Apparently it was a KGB blackmail ring and they’d been blackmailing various exhibitors - such as the fellow they newspaper had named as “The Midland Bonk” (the Midland Bank rep). Somewhere I still have those newspapers (the story was serialised over two weeks).

I met all sort of interesting people in Moscow. After Cintrex I later ended up in Moscow around 1990 working on a project for a certain exhinition company at a US geotechnical show with a view to living in Moscow and running their office. Moscow still had the burned and blackened Whitehouse and all the buses used as barricades were still in the streets and hadn’t been cleared up from their recent revolution, the fall of the USSR. I had my own brutal looking, shaven headed monster bodyguard who drove me in what was a brand new shiny blue Lada. After 6 weeks every panel of the Lada was covered in dents including the bonnet which has obviously had a body roll on it which has crushed it.

A 6 week stint with all the office staff actively working against me refusing to translate for me or do the customs docs which I produced myself on my own laptop with a Russian keyboard and dictionary pianstakingly grinding through the paperwork every night for about a week or so before the show. I was exhausted - to say the least. I found out why later when I saw that it was set up to do a deal in Red Mercury rather then service exhibitions. I saw my ex-company on TV on Despatches and how Red Mercury was probably a KGB sting.

Life is pretty dull these days.

Very dull being a penpusher these days…

[efes]

The Mezhdunarodnaya Hotel not far from the exhibition ground. Various foreign companies had offices at the back of the hotel and much fun was had at the bar… There were some Texan cowboys lived there wearing full gear, cowboy hats and boots all apparently on oil business. We used to go back to their flat for beers and they let us use their showers. Good guys!

I have vague recollections of there being a competition amongst British exhibitors to throw things at the ■■■■■■■■■■… Personally I didn’t get involved in such frolics as everything was rather too carefully monitored.

There was great competition to get a parking space for the truck over one of the steam vents outside the hotel as they stopped the truck from freezing up completely. There was always a Promotor truck, Kepstowe truck (driven by “boshing Pete”) and a Dutch company whose name eludes me at the moment. I used to wear moonboots to keep my feet warm it was so terribly cold. Wearing ordinary shoes to look presentable at the bar just to walk 100m on the cold frozen ground was painful…

[sandway]

Morning Efes. Glad you still have the newspaper cuttings of the Barry Jones exposure. I hadn’t seen it before but after a reading it I see he was still boasting of his ■■■■■■ prowess and the Russian girls he’d had. “523 not counting repeats” he said. I wonder if he kept a calculator and diary in his bed!!!