Monthly Archives: March 2016

Bespoke wedding toilet roll (Rousse)

The bride-to-be introduced me to the latest hot trend in wedding stationery: personalised toilet tissue. On each perforated section was the name of a wedding guest. She asked me to go through the whole roll to identify whether any of … Continue reading

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A leap to death from a floating shopping trolley (Rousse)

We floated in our shopping trolleys high above the river on a beautiful summer’s day. Then the old lady – my friend’s mother – jumped. I knew that she didn’t stand a chance. Her neck broke the moment that her … Continue reading

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How to flirt 1980s style (Rousse)

My expertise did not stretch to biomedical science, yet I was charged with delivering a lecture to the new first years. I won them over in the first few minutes with a couple of jokes, then kept their interest by … Continue reading

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No room at the office (Rousse)

I couldn’t fit into my office because it was overrun by PhD students and the keynote speaker of their forthcoming doctoral colloquium (AB).

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Unemployed Sunderland couple give daughter away (Rousse)

Who was this small dark-haired, short-legged child with a Scottish accent living with the mother of my childhood friend ECM? She couldn’t possibly be ECM’s little sister: her mother had been widowed for years. A neighbour (and known fantasist) suggested … Continue reading

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£10 fine for library book ten years overdue (Rousse)

DMcA left the library having confessed that the book that he had just returned was ten years overdue. Now it was my turn to be served. I hastily waved my library card over the machine reader. In doing so I … Continue reading

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Birthday beanie hats (Rousse)

I had forgotten all about my latest knitting project until I saw GB walk past the bus depot on Annandale Street. I resolved get to work on the beanie hat that I had promised to knit for her birthday, and … Continue reading

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Camilla commemorated in roadside shrine to lost sash (Rousse)

Did anyone really care that at this bend in the single track road Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, once lost a sash from her dress? TPR and I were thoroughly sickened at the over-commercialisation of the Isle of Mull.

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Bare-chested 80s music fan caught on film (Rousse)

‘There you are! There you are!’ I shouted as TPR and I watched the old video footage of an audience at a music concert in the mid-1980s. The young TPR wasn’t that difficult to spot. Bare-chested in the third row, … Continue reading

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Northern lads, guitars, drums and witty lyrics (Rousse)

‘Northern lads, guitars, drums and witty lyrics – that’s my kind of music’, I declared when the woman told me that she was a Morrissey fan. She couldn’t care less. She didn’t even react when I noted that the Scottish … Continue reading

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