Category Archives: Uncategorized

Miniscule, muscular, olive-skinned actors (Rousse)

TPR and I were the only audience members at this bizarre performance. Apparently it had been playing to a packed house every night, and the only reason that it was so quiet today was that we had chosen to come … Continue reading

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Alan Hollinghurst leads double life as computing lecturer (Rousse)

Some of my colleagues were lovely. Unfortunately the rest were vile. One of the latter set had just made a formal complaint about me: that I’d used more than my fair share of soap when taking a bath. I took … Continue reading

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James Bond and a hand-knit metallic jumper surprise (Rousse)

HH opened the massive cardboard box that she’d brought on her visit. “Just a few presents” she announced as I spied the beautiful hand-knitted string jumpers in a dazzling array of metallic colours. I grabbed a golden one and pulled … Continue reading

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Commercial opportunity for a copy shop chain (Rousse)

I ran across the road, narrowly avoiding oncoming traffic from the right, to reach the bus stop before the arrival of the number 11. Although it was a Sunday, the bus was packed. Most of the passengers were on the … Continue reading

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Rousse’s encounter with the England World Cup winners

I had to travel from Birmingham to London to check out the venue for the following day’s conference. While the others piled into cars and minibuses, I wandered around the car park regretting that I had not arranged a lift. … Continue reading

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A £50k lottery win (Rousse)

M and AP were looking very pleased with themselves – and no wonder: they’d just won £50,000 on the National Lottery.

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The body in the bedroom (Rousse)

TPR made the gruesome discovery when we lifted the bed across to the other side of the room. Gently swinging from from the bedstead was the stiff little corpse of a fully dressed toddler. From the state of the decomposing … Continue reading

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IBM presentation fails to win over academics (Rousse)

The organisers had made a terrible mistake in bringing together this bunch of rude, disobedient ego-maniacs. They had been locked up for a week at this luxury hotel to work collaboratively on developing innovative research proposals, but since their arrival … Continue reading

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A lunch date in Luskentyre (Rousse)

I crossed the bridge over the Thames to track down a café. A friendly man nearby introduced himself to me as Ed and joined me in my quest for lunch. When nothing suitable could be found on the north bank … Continue reading

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Knowledge management: not a “cinch” after all (Rousse)

The students were busy discussing their options for next term. Three over-confident boys declared that they would choose my class because it would be a “cinch”. The most arrogant of the three boasted proudly that he was already was familiar … Continue reading

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