Considering that the show I was on (BBC Five Live's Up all Night) was being played at 3.35am in the UK I think I am safe from instant fame in my homeland. It is also unlikely that the Kazakh secret service were tuning into Five Live (unless they had been listening to victorious England in the last Ashes Test Match, fallen asleep and woken four hours later to hear some over-excited expat housewife describing their country as "like the wild west on cocaine"), so I am probably safe from expulsion on the grounds of criticizing the regime, which, for the avoidance of doubt, I was not!
So how did the Beluga get invited to speak? Persuaded by my friend Emily Expat (not her real name!) whose friend works for the beeb and had asked her to do it. Emily Expat was too aware of her own propensity to say outrageous things and so she had passed it on - or perhaps she had been worried that the show might air after a Sunday night session in Line Brew pub and she might have really shocked everyone then.
Yay! Just listened via the miracle of the BBC i-player because, as you'd suspected, was sleeping like a bigbelugababy while you were being interviewed. Loved it, and snorted tea out of my nose (surprisingly painful!) when you started talking about 'cocaine' and 'wild west'. Wouldn't be allowed on Radio 4's Today Program! Really interesting listen - particularly the bits when you try to describe the police force without sounding critical!
ReplyDeleteHa ha I would never criticize the police force. They just operate along different lines to those you might expect. I have heard one good story about them though, which stemmed from a particularly nasty crime and which they solved in very quick time, but on the whole it is just mild harassment on a daily basis that we experience.
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