Brussels or Benghazi

There is me, running around like a chicken with its head chopped off and out to Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Bahrain, sojourns in "Blighty" Oman, and the Lebanon and then off to China, here there and everywhere and now I am chewing the cud and thinking about two years in the Libyan dessert and before that up to Glasgow and for what? Well, it's my job, I suppose, although common sense tells me I should be moving on, or going back, to translations and other things; things where there are pecuniary pickings of the sort that a mediocre man deserves and that gets me to my story. Yes, back to translating has its attractions, sitting at home, supping wee cups of tea, sleeping when I am tired but why not forward, not back, and, what about a job as a Member of the European Parliament? Don't need much of a brain for that, anyone can do it, certainly worth a thought.
Anyway, there was me today doing my daily flick through of the British papers and a wee story about how the Kinnocks, the very mediocre Niel and the non-entity Glenys, have picked up up to £8m of taxpayers’ money in pay and allowances, with Niel playing at being a European commissioner and Glenys as an MEP.(1) It was a little story that put me in touch with the bigger picture and discovering that the salary of British MEPs rises next month from £63,000 to £80,500 and that MEPs are entitled to expenses and allowances of £363,000 a year including a £261 daily subsistence allowance for simply going to work and that some of them employ members of there families and pay them thousands and thousands of pounds of taxpayers money.(2) Anyway, off I go, up to Glasgow and then on to ..... Brussels or Benghazi or is it Strasburg or Saudi? Maybe, it is time to start acquiring translation work again!
1 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6493969.ece
2 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6382831.ece