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around the world.
    Although I had a great time overseas, when I came back I still needed qualifications and a career plan. So I went back to Southampton to do a Master of Science degree, paid for by my long-suffering mother, because my first degree was average and I wasn’t eligible for funding assistance.
    Towards the end of my first degree and throughoutmy Masters I specialised in sedimentary rocks, micro-palaeontology (micro fossils) and palynology. Palynology is, very basically, the study of microscopic material formed of extremely chemically resistant material, usually pollen grains of seed plants, spores of ferns and various other microscopic particles (we usually refer to them collectively as ‘pollen’). In the oil industry, chemical processes are used to extract pollen from rock samples and cores of material brought up from underground using long drills.
    Fossilised pollen can help oil engineers ‘see’ their way around underground. By examining sequences of rocks and noting the way in which the micro fossils vary in different rock layers (in conjunction with many other sophisticated techniques), it is possible to build up a three-dimensional picture of the sediments and structures beneath the ground surface. Once an engineer/geologist identifies the rock layer through which they want to drill or construct, it’s a matter of examining the micro fossils in that layer as drilling progresses to make sure the drilling stays in the direction it’s supposed to. The tunnel that runs under the English Channel between England and France was kept on track partly by using micro-fossil analysis of the rocks being dug out. Back then, studying micro palaeontology was a traditional way into the oil industry or engineering geology.
    I had another great year doing my Masters but by the end of the course, the oil industry had bottomed out and many top-level geologists and palynologists had been made redundant. There was no way the oil companies would give a job to a fresh post-graduate like me. Plus I would have had to do helicopter training, and that was a no-no. Did I fancy being plunged intoa freezing cold swimming pool of water while strapped into the frame of a helicopter, just to see if I could get out alive? Strangely, no, I didn’t. I know plenty of people who have done it, but they’re real geologists.
    Instead I spent some time living in the Canary Islands holiday resort of Tenerife, in that most classy of areas, Playa de las Americas. Anyone who has ever been to Tenerife or in fact anywhere like Ibiza, Majorca, Costa del Sol or Costa Brava will know these places are infested, and there’s no cure. They are hopelessly infested with that most terrible of diseases — Brits Abroad. With knotted hankies on their heads (it’s true), white and red suntans, drinking enough lager and alcopops to float a ship round the world, the British on holiday are a curious breed. I feel qualified to say that because not only did I work with them, I was one of them. Only once mind you, in 1994 for a week in February. It was such good fun I decided I’d like to live and work in Tenerife, which was a mistake of course, because life as a worker in a holiday resort is far removed from life as a tourist.
    It wasn’t the shift work or long, late hours that put me off living in Tenerife; it was the alcohol and drugs people poured into themselves. I couldn’t stand the endless swilling and related drunkenness and the clatter of pill-popping all around me; some people should have had a childproof cap instead of a head, given the number of pills they popped every day. One day I just decided I’d had enough, I couldn’t stand seeing it any more. There are only so many times I can put up with stag parties throwing up in the street or drunken women shrieking at each other and staggering about on high heels or watch helplessly as a pickpocket relieved yet another drunkof their wallet. You