X sat at his desk beneath the Smiths poster. Every time that a gust of wind blew outdoors the poster billowed. I suggested that the windows be closed. It was winter after all.

All this time I had thought that X was happy with his work. I was about to discover how wrong I was. He suddenly started listing a string of complaints. The first was that he wasn’t offered enough opportunities to enter for awards. This was ridiculous. He’d just put in a bid (which he had not won, but that was because he didn’t show me the final draft of his application form. The others who had seen it thought it was ‘fine’…)

My old head of department was within earshot and clearly understood what was going on. X was simply having a strop.