'The Tandem Jump'

I recently took a promotion and it’s taking up all my time.

Admittedly, I now have a tongue the colour of a chocolate brownie dunked in a full fat latte, and I’m embarrassed to say it, that's how you get places. If you haven’t yet sold your soul to climb up the corporate ladder, then you wouldn’t understand what its like to lick the arse of a fat, old and incontinent senior executive at an investment bank in order to obtain notability.

So, promotion and pay rise in hand, off I went to Geneva in Switzerland to help the rich and deceitful invest and hide wealth. Now, Geneva is beautiful, for many reasons. Mostly, because I am free (temporarily) from my wife of many turbulent years, but also because I can ski which I love and drink excessively, which I love even more. Primarily though, I am here for the rich and attractive women.

I have a plan you see. When I say rich and attractive, this actually has only one singular meaning. Rich women are attractive. Physically, most are as appealing as sand swept ice cream on Bournemouth beach, but that’s not the point.

In my new role here in Geneva, I meet many highly unattractive but more importantly, very rich divorced women. Now, if I need to explain my plan further, then you are reading the wrong blog. This plan though, is a story for another day.

My new boss in the land of tax evasion, hypocrites and rich female divorcees is a French/American adrenaline junkie called Raymond and he wants me to make the most of my free time as a singleton in Geneva - whether I like it or not. He loves nothing more than trying to kill himself each and every weekend. 'Work hard - play hard', he says. What a cock!

So, he gave me what he said was a choice. Bungee or skydive. The only choice I could see in this scenario was do I have a coronary at 10,000 ft above the Swiss Alps or while tied to a fat brown rubber band strapped carelessly to my ankles.

I told Raymond that I was busy washing my hair for the remainder of my secondment to Geneva, but he is one of these guys that is incapable of understanding or accepting the word - no. Such a word often used by my wife of an evening when I have a hard-on.

He also has an annoying tendency to throw his arm over your shoulder while leading you to someplace you don’t actually want to go to, often, in the opposite direction to which you were travelling. You know the type.

I made my decision (which incidentally was to sit in front of the TV with the Swiss equivalent of the Daily Mail). Next thing, I find myself 10,000ft in the air with a thin lipped, square chinned, tanned Dutch guy called Dirk strapped to my back. He carried out his in-flight checks which happened to include making sure my helmet was strapped up correctly.

Ok, let’s think about this for a minute. I was about to be tossed out of a plane at 10,000ft with a 15 stone Dutch playboy tied to my waist. I was going to reach speeds of up to 120mph at terminal velocity while falling out of the sky like Pan Am flight 103. If my parachute didn’t open, would I be thinking, 'thank god I’m wearing a helmet'?

So Dirk, whose constant facial expression was that of a playful and excited teenager, said in his big deep Dutch voice, "You’re gonna love this, it’s gonna be the best experience of your life, just relax, I’ve got ya!"

Excuse me! You’ve got me! So, what you mean is: if the chute doesn’t open I can be reassured by the fact that not only am I wearing a nice bright helmet, but 'you’ve got me!' What are you – Spiderman?

If I had to jump out of plane by myself it simply wouldn’t ever happen but Dirk was pushing me from behind like an opportunistic bum bandit on a crowded subway train and I was going where he was going - like it or not. Problem was he was heading for the bloody door which happened to be wide open, wind swept and led to some big open space of nothing but brown stained boxer shorts and fluffy clouds.

Suddenly, I realised that I loved life, I believed in the God Almighty and I was a yellow bellied coward and I wanted out, but it was no use. Dirk was in control. I was strapped to him like a lifeless puppet and suddenly I’m looking down at 10 acre fields the size of an ant’s eyeball. "Hang on", he shouts. "This is going to be incredible" and the little git pushed me out the door.

Holy shit…….!