A runner and a red, 60-litre, flip-top kitchen bin (Rousse)

Posted on February 21, 2021 by Dreamaticus

Hundreds of faster runners passed me as I headed south along the cycle path. I wished that I could run faster.

Perhaps my times would improve if I abandoned carrying the soil-filled, red, 60-litre, flip-top kitchen bin?

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Fake finance guru fools all on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme (Rousse)

Posted on February 19, 2021 by Dreamaticus

We were all horrified when my niece BM announced at the breakfast table that she was about to be interviewed by a financial journalist on Radio 4’s Today programme. What on earth did she know about big business?

It was true that she didn’t have an ounce of relevant knowledge. However, BM was an actor who had spent the past couple of years working in high-end fashion manufacturing. Listening into conversations at work, she had picked up the vocabulary of the business owners.

She made a very credible interviewee, analysing the current industrial landscape, assessing the contribution of ‘her’ business to economic recovery, and predicting vast profits in post-pandemic times. Nobody would ever have known that she was faking it.

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Award of a silver BA Executive Club card (Rousse)

Posted on February 17, 2021 by Dreamaticus

I was delighted that the corporate purchase of a last-minute return flight to Argentina awarded me a silver British Airways Executive Club card.

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Cash-collecting criminal caught on CCTV (Rousse)

Posted on February 14, 2021 by Dreamaticus

I added to my fortune whenever I paid a visit to the cash dispenser just outside Edinburgh’s Balmoral Hotel. Here each morning on my way to work, I pretended to make a transaction. In reality, I was picking up wads of used bank notes, then stuffing them into my satchel.

I had no idea who was supplying the cash. I would have continued to collect it until TPR pointed out that my dodgy dealings were probably being recorded on CCTV, and that I would soon be arrested.

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Book group bloke ban (Rousse)

Posted on February 10, 2021 by Dreamaticus

I’d had enough of TPR’s ‘book’ group buddies. Each Monday night he invited more and more men to the house, offering them a seat at our dinner table along with a plentiful supply of beer.

I eventually cracked the day that EH’s husband J turned up. TPR plonked a plate of sausage, egg and mashed potato in front of him then left me to deal with the fall-out of his ‘But I’m a vegetarian’ complaint.

When TPR led his crowd of friends into the back garden to admire our new shed, I took my revenge: by locking them all in the tunnel under our lawn. The house now clear of blokes, I hoped that EH would play Carcassonne with me.

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Marilyn Monroe’s foreknowledge of death (Rousse)

Posted on February 9, 2021 by Dreamaticus

Someone asked me if we should tell the young Marilyn Monroe that she would die in her mid-thirties.

I responded that she probably knew this already from checking her Wikipedia entry.

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Book group blunder (Rousse)

Posted on February 8, 2021 by Dreamaticus

Our book group meeting was packed out with non-members including N & SY, and a red haired former student of mine whose name I could not remember.

The venue for the night was a turreted Victorian lodge house next to the sea. I was impressed that colourful plants grew outside the door, even though we were in the depths of winter. The house was not so handsome on the inside. I suffered claustrophobia in the tiny room where we left our coats. I wasn’t sure whether it was the enclosed space that set me off, or the dense pink-flowered wallpaper that simply made me feel ill.

MH committed a terrible faux pas in the upstairs room designated for discussion of the book. She brought in a plate of pastries and handed them round for everyone to eat. She had not understood that these treats were meant for the family of the house, and not for us.

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Barefoot travel crisis (Rousse)

Posted on February 6, 2021 by Dreamaticus

After taxi dropped me off at the airport, I found a quiet spot by the entrance where I could sort out my belongings. I had my cashmere Tweed jacket (even though it was summer), my passport, and my purse. But where were my shoes? I knew that I would not be granted access to the plane barefoot.

I had two options: to buy a pair of shoes in one of the airport shops (expensive) or beg a pair from a stranger (no cost, if I was lucky). I targetted the National Library of Scotland for my begging, and walked into a large open plan office that housed cataloguers. Although the workers offered sympathy for my plight, none was willing to give their footwear to me.

In the end, on the road I found a pair of white leather Jesus sandals that just fitted me. These would have to do.

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Barry Manilow keynote (Rousse)

Posted on February 5, 2021 by Dreamaticus

It took a few minutes for me to take in that we had secured Barry Manilow as the keynote speaker for our next networking event.

Who would have ever guessed that the American superstar singer would join us as a favour for his personal friend (our event committee member) MMcC?

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Lost in Edinburgh with lacrosse at the castle (Rousse)

Posted on February 3, 2021 by Dreamaticus

The University chauffeur drove us through the Edinburgh Streets in the posh yellow car. This was extraordinary service for the two PhD students beside me. That said, the chauffeur obviously didn’t know the city that well when he took a turn towards Leith rather than the New Town.

I remembered the short cut that PD and WB had used through Holyrood Park the previous week, so advised the chauffeur that we take this route. This ‘road’ was a grassy track with a large deep puddle half way up the hill. We held our breath as the car sped through the water.

Our final destination was a fee-paying school based within a handsome castle. Grey and red uniformed pupils milled around the entrance, some brandishing lacrosse sticks. RS was agog: was this the school on which Hogwarts was based?

The chauffeur told us that he had to leave us here so that he could set off on his next assignment. His instruction was to track down a lecturer called Gordon Sinclair in the far north of Scotland. Sinclair was apparently living a life of luxury on a University salary, even though he was no longer employed by the institution.

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