It’s not all Glamour You Know

It’s difficult to know exactly what my interviewee thought as I broke off from a question about Prince William’s attire with a quick “Uh I’m going to be sick” before vomiting into a wastepaper bin. But it would have taken a glass-half-full type of chap to conclude she hadn’t noticed anything amiss. The only saving grace was that I was conducting the interview by phone.
Mine was a strange weekend in many ways. Stomach bugs are a hack’s occupational hazard in this part of the world but this was the first time a bout of vomiting and diarrhoea had affected my ability to do the job. The rest of Saturday is best left undescribed.
On previous occasions the show has gone on with only a slight interruption for other business.
1) Mogadishu International Airport – my bowels had survived a rather hair-raising drive through burning barricades on the way to the airport (I had to leave that particular day because I was due to attend a hostile environment training course, oh the irony) but gave out 30 mins before I was due to board. Escorted to the “toilet” by a man with an AK-47, the absence of toilet paper and running water (not to mention the fixture you and I would recognise as an actual toilet) would normally have been enough to make me seek alternative arrangements. On this occasion the choice was out of my hands. Suffice to say the rest of my journey passed in unpleasant fashion as the rickety 727 to Dubai had neither toilet paper nor water either. (This episode was discussed during the personal hygiene section of the hazardous environment course later that week. I learned that I should always consider my socks to be expendable.)
2) The Botswana Bush – Engaged in a stealth operation involving a pair of binoculars and a long lens is not the time to have a toilet emergency. So I’d put it off until it was un-put-offable with the result that I set off our car’s alarm in my haste to exit the scene. Again something not required in a stealth operation. And again, I’ll leave the details to your imagination adding only that a pair of my trousers is rotting in a bush somewhere in the Okavango Delta.
Anyone got any similar stories?