Dealing with lift scroungers (Rousse)

Posted on November 1, 2026 by Dreamaticus

‘How convenient that you chose to be dropped off here after our weekend away. Once again, I bet that you have assumed that I will give you a lift home?’ snarled DM at LB.

Poor LB looked aghast. None of us had ever witnessed DM in this kind of mood. Dare I now make my confession to her? I felt that I had no choice.

‘I need to tell you something’, I began. ‘I forgot to pick up your quilted coat when we left Pitlochry. I could drive back there tomorrow and collect it then, if you like?’

DM gave me a big hug and told me that this was no problem. She had plenty of other coats, and could easily find another way to recover the one that I forgot.

DM clearly just had it in for lift scroungers.

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Robot drawing exercise does not live up to undergraduate expectations (Rousse)

Posted on October 31, 2026 by Dreamaticus

I was running out of ideas for filling the time in my Knowledge Management class. In desperation, I asked the students to draw the robot that appeared in a piece of fiction that I had asked the class members to read the previous week.

When I left the classroom to find some more large sheets of paper for the drawings, I overheard the students’ plans to put in a complaint about my poor teaching.

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A mother on the Paris Metro (Rousse)

Posted on October 31, 2026 by Dreamaticus

The walk across the Champs Elysées was much more rural and far longer than  I remembered. I thus decided to return to my Paris hotel by Metro.

By complete coincidence, I bumped into my mother on the station platform. She had travelled all the way to France by herself to see me, and was completely confused by the public address system that had just announced the cancellation of the next train.

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An alcohol-free night with the Coren Mitchells (Rousse)

Posted on October 30, 2026 by Dreamaticus

I’d never tried Guiness Zero before, but here I was swilling it at the invitation of Victoria Coren Mitchell in the big Victorian house in London that she shared with her husband David. Their two little girls already were in bed, but very much in evidence from the children’s books scattered about the rooms.

The three of us watched an old pilot television series on tape that starred my two hosts – plus my sister-in-law SS.

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Andy Burnham needs a haircut (Rousse)

Posted on October 29, 2026 by Dreamaticus

I hadn’t fallen in love with my fellow undergraduate GE, but it was convenient that we should become a couple, especially if we both planned to start our careers in Oxford. I really needed to find out more about her and her family before we both came out. There was also the tricky issue of ending it all with TPR.

Snuggled up to GE in her tiny hall of residence bed, we both listened to Any questions broadcast live from her dormitory.

Whenever I popped my head out from under the covers, I could see the entire cabinet seated in a long line at a table just to the right of us. The Prime Minister Andy Burnham was closest to me, and in serious need of a haircut.

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A happy, demented, picnicker (Rousse)

Posted on October 27, 2026 by Dreamaticus

My dark-haired mother looked great picnicking in a park in Newcastle. I confessed to her that I thought that she was at death’s door two years ago, and that I felt guilt for having thrown out her old diaries.

She did, however exhibit some symptoms of dementia. She had forgotten all about the family home and seemed to be quite content living in a house just outside Hexham.

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Smoked salmon salad cocktails and stormy seas in the Outer Hebrides (Rousse)

Posted on October 26, 2026 by Dreamaticus

It was the end of the final season for my favourite guest house on the Isle of Lewis. As a favour to innkeeper RG, I helped him with the catering in his attempt to use up all the food that remained in the house.

For lunch we made a small tray of meatballs. I feared that these would not stretch to feed the twenty guests seated across three tables. I offered to make smoked salmon salad cocktails for dinner, provided that there were avocados for sale in the village shop.

I couldn’t quite understand why my university friend QL and my old office mate SM were present. However, even if they had wanted to leave, they could not. All ferries were cancelled due to the storms.

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Citizen’s arrest of banned driver caught ‘drunk’ at the wheel in the Scottish Highlands (Rousse)

Posted on October 25, 2026 by Dreamaticus

TPR had had enough of his driving ban. He took the car keys, jumped into the driver’s seat, instructed me to sleep in the back, and hit the road north. When I woke, I could tell that we had passed Ullapool.

‘Where are we heading? I asked.

‘To the bone caves’, he replied ‘For a 10k mountain walk’.

Normally I would have been happy to do this. However, setting off at 7pm on a chilly autumn evening was simply not sensible. TPR pulled into a passing place for the ensuing argument.

Our argument was only broken when an American wrenched open the driver’s door and snatched the car keys. She was convinced that we were both drunk. It was her role as a responsible citizen to keep the pair of us off the road.

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Sting and spousal abuse at the university reunion (Rousse)

Posted on October 25, 2026 by Dreamaticus

What a coup! Sting came to sing for us at our university reunion.

Now all I had to deal with was the last-minute booking from a fellow undergraduate who had brought her wife-beating boyfriend along with her.

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A return to hall of residence life – in Manchester (Rousse)

Posted on October 22, 2026 by Dreamaticus

Our new home was a small study bedroom in a derelict hall of residence at the University of Manchester.

We reached the building by way of the A702. The last part of this road was still under development. It petered out into a dirt track for the last couple of miles.

Amongst the others in the hall was my former colleague JB (very slim). J and GC were also visiting. They paddled with me and TPR in the nearby flooded shopping mall. We were there hunting for porridge oats to make our breakfasts in the coming weeks.

When we returned to our room, we spotted the size of the (only) bed. How could two people possibly even fit in there, let alone attempt sleep?

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