An Italian bathroom shortage (Rousse)

I was in Italy for a week, staying in a room within a hall of residence block. The space was so tight throughout the whole building that I doubted that anyone even slightly overweight would manage to move around it easily.

I thought that my ensuite bathroom was private, so was rather surprised to find 1995 graduate PG in there first thing in the morning.

‘Don’t you know that this is one of just two bathrooms in the entire block?’ he explained to me.

I vowed to lock my bedroom door securely from that point onwards. I wasn’t prepared to share by space with anyone. They’d all just have to use the other bathroom.

Later that day I returned to my room to find that yet another person was in ‘my’ bathroom. This time it was the cleaner. I started speaking to her in Italian, but she struggled to respond. When we realised that we were both native English speakers she explained that she was busy running a special ‘Italian’ bath for me. The bubbles at one end were white. At the other, beside the taps, they were bright red.

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A private performance by the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre (Rousse)

Edinburgh’s East Claremont Street was closed to traffic for a performance of the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre. We all gathered on the northern side of the road against the high hedge of Claremont Crescent Garden. The performers lined up opposite us. The stage was much longer than usual. This was to accommodate some ‘guest’ socks.

There was an obvious problem from the moment that the show started. The socks’ voices weren’t amplified properly, so the spectators from further along the street couldn’t hear a single word of the dialogue.

‘Not to worry, we’ll fix it. All will be sorted within 30 minutes’, declared Kev Sutherland.

‘Is that really how long it will take?’ I asked.

‘No’, replied Kev, ‘It will take two hours – but I don’t want to lose my audience.’

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Racial identification and job changes (Rousse)

After two weeks in the sun, C looked like an African. I asked if he was looking forward to experiencing racial prejudice first hand. Meanwhile I became more and more distressed as I realised that it was impossible to pull on a pair of lime green patterned cycling shorts that used to fit me.

Beside us C’s wife A was busy listing all the recent UK job moves. Did I know that BB was moving to Loughborough? (Had BB let slip to A my own recent employment near miss?)

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Dreamaticus fame draws in the fans (Rousse)

‘Oh yes, I read that on Dreamaticus this morning’ I overheard AN say.

I couldn’t wait to tell Belle that senior academics start their day by browsing our famed dream blog.

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Tattooed body litter lookalike (Rousse)

A teenager on a bobsleigh whizzed past the house and accidentally scooped up TPR. The unintended hitch-hiker was eventually deposited in the sea.

As TPR emerged bare chested from the waves I noticed that he had acquired yet another tattoo. The word ‘Wiley’ was stamped across his torso.

‘You look more and more like a piece of litter with every act of vandalism inked onto your body’, I complained.

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Footwear planters for lost love (Rousse)

I finally twigged that the person opposite was flirting with me and that this was my chance to offer an invitation back to my room. That said, I was aware some other young people at the bar were teasing my companion for investing any interest in me at all, most likely due to our age difference.

Would their actions determine whether or not the invitation would be accepted? My hesitation cost me the date when my companion wandered off with a bunch of contemporaries to a house party in a flooded street.

I now found myself all alone outside a florist disguised as an ordinary terraced house. As compensation for my disappointment, I bought some herbs potted in colourful child-sized Wellington boots.

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Twin sorting in New York (Rousse)

A large park in New York was the destination for our school reunion. I arrived by bike.

My first challenge was to separate out the twins.

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Unwelcome in Radcliffe-on-Trent (Rousse)

I took a huge risk crossing the strait by canoe without a life-jacket, but made it safely to Radcliffe-on-Trent.

I realised my mistake the moment that I intercepted my sister-in-law JLR and niece F, who were on their way to the swimming pool for the afternoon. My ‘surprise’ was to them an extremely unwelcome interruption to their regular routine.

I said that I would check into the closest Premier Inn rather than impose myself on them. (In any case, I couldn’t remember their address, and I now doubted that JLR would ever give it to me.)

When I heard that RJH was also in the vicinity, I invited him to join me at the hotel.

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A very short-lived relationship with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson (Belle)

I moved in with The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) and admired the massive double bed with a crisp white bedspread. However, by teatime, Dwayne had moved out and Andy Samberg had let his small daughter drive – and wreck – my car.

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A wandering whiteboard and a late PhD submission (Rousse)

After all the expense of transporting it, I returned to Edinburgh from Glasgow without my precious mini whiteboard. It was fortunate that my cousin EB had a suitcase large enough to carry it back to Bristol by plane, although I had no idea how I would retrieve it from the south of England before the start of the new academic year.

My other worry was my second PhD. Would I complete it by the end of the summer, or was I now looking at a Christmas submission?

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