FACKIN' HELL - Repressed Tourette's Syndrome
Sheer exhaustion at end of five week stint of back to back tours at end of season. Nice people, itineraries ok, tips pretty good and, apart from a few wet days, good weather and autumnal scenery - season of mists and mellow fruitfulness indeed. Yet I breathed a huge sigh of relief as we came back fairly early on the last day of the Best of Britain and Leena came back the next day. It was so nice being back in normal surroundings and with people I did not need to keep happy - in fact people I could swear at and with.
Swearing on tours is a bit like wearing jeans - it just isn't done. I noticed my driver for the last two tours, Paul, when we were out of passenger earshot, scattered plenty of f-word expletives, quite unnecessarily, in normal conversation. You simply can't do that in front of passengers and it is oddly nice and necessary to do it when you finish work.
Tourette's syndrome, by the way, is unintended swearing and verbal diarrhoea which would virtually disqulaify you from the work of guiding. I find myself swearing inwardly when I am working and, only after the tours are over and the passengersdropped off, can you let again.
So that's the fucking end of that - no more swearing on this site. Got to keep up standards...