Project plans go up in smoke (Rousse)

Posted on May 5, 2019 by Dreamaticus

Out of the blue I heard that I had been named as a co-investigator on a UK Digital Economy Programme Network+ grant on the theme of ‘Place’. The project would be led by a colleague at the University of St Andrews, who had recently returned to work following a period of maternity leave.

Our first project meeting took place in a posh hotel high on a cliff overlooking a golf course and the sea. Here we would plan the events for the network programme.

A member of hotel staff tidied up while we discussed how to spend the grant. She threw a pile of papers on to the fire, amongst them all the signed documentation related to our funding, including sponsorship agreements with several large companies.

Despite our best efforts with soft furnishings, we failed to put out the flames and save the contracts. Our project was over before it even began.

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Accommodation woes at the University of Birmingham (Rousse)

Posted on May 4, 2019 by Dreamaticus

The renamed, but not refurbished, Mason Hall on the Vale at the University of Birmingham was to be our home for our Masters year.

Once again I was sharing accommodation with HJ and SL, although this time it was not a flat. Instead it was tiny room containing one double bed. Next to it was a tiny bathroom with a camp bed under the basin. This was not going to be comfortable.

My sister S provided a convenient distraction from my accommodation worries, and study. While it was fun to spend time with her, before long I was falling behind with my work.

I wondered whether I might be better off asking to switch rooms, then knuckling down to some serious revision? JM was accommodated on one of the floors above us near the library. Perhaps he would have room for me?

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A bouncing mamma (Rousse)

Posted on May 4, 2019 by Dreamaticus

My mother held up the strange flattened ice form to show it to me. Then, ignoring my shrieked warnings, she stepped backwards and fell 10 feet into the basement yard below.

Fortunately she bounced, so was unharmed.

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A resurrection music rant (Rousse)

Posted on May 4, 2019 by Dreamaticus

When it looked like she had come to the end of her loud Home Counties rant about spoiling the peace of the Scottish countryside, I murmured an ‘OK, we get it’. I quickly slipped her the two fingers just as she made a move to walk away.

She immediately turned back to me and started again, this time on Brexit, with reinforcements. What she hadn’t counted on was that the couple that she pulled into the argument were my school friend AP and her husband, and he – at least – was on my side.

This had all kicked off simply because my mother, sister S and I were playing music to celebrate our reunion with my father five months after his death. Wouldn’t anyone turn up the car radio if they rediscovered a lost loved one? (We also enjoyed playing with the three little girls that we found on the back seat of the car, each a younger version of the three sisters.)

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Belle co-stars with Grace Kelly and gets nude for four in a tub fun

Posted on May 3, 2019 by Dreamaticus

I’d been given a tiny little child’s desk in a corridor. Soon I would be expected to manage every single Olympic Games ticket order and yet the new senior managers were trying to force me out of my job.

I decided to pal up with the sales force and they took me out for a test drive in a brand new gold Audi. After a minor bump on the overpass we went to a hotel where I ran a bath and threw off all my clothes while encouraging my three colleagues to join me in the tub.

Grace Kelly was at the bar and I admired her spy skills. She was having a conversation with a detective about getting drunk and the detective was nodding along enthusiastically. To the enemy seated a few feet away, it looked as if she was exposing their plot and the detective believed her. I’d never seen this Hitchcock film before, and now I was actually part of the action.

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Equality and diversity at awards ceremony in rainy Hawaii (Rousse)

Posted on April 29, 2019 by Dreamaticus

For those for whom this kind of incentive holiday was a first, dark skies and cold rain on Hawaii was a grave disappointment. For me, however, it was a relief, especially since I had spend the preceding weeks in a Californian heatwave. In any case, there was more to the holiday than the weather.

When the breakfast buffet opened, for example, I encouraged my sister J to follow SM to the far end, just to hear the witticisms that he shared with the waiting staff (while I piled my plate high with bread and smoked fish).

BC was also in attendance, and always good for a laugh. On this occasion he was particularly scathing about the poor spelling and grammar in a memo that we received about equality and diversity at the awards ceremony later in the week: it was a requirement that everyone invited on stage received exactly the same amount of applause.

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Edinburgh showroom and shootings (Rousse)

Posted on April 28, 2019 by Dreamaticus

MSB welcomed her friends into her plush new showroom on the corner of Edinburgh’s Broughton and Barony Streets. Through the floor to ceiling windows, from outside you could see the visitors gathering beside her, hanging onto her every word.

When I entered the shop, I noticed a collection of decorative candles gathered on a table at the back of the room in the far right corner. Each was so distinctive that I was able to guess the names of the friends who had presented the candles as gifts to MSB. The fancy one from BW was the most obvious.

All the talk at the gathering was of the recent shootings in Edinburgh. I related my experience of observing a man hold a tiny child at gunpoint on the Meadows only earlier the same day.

Later we all headed to the Pentland Hills for our own target practice, with empty beer cans as our quarry.

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Tussling with a drag queen and making Michael Portillo cry (Belle)

Posted on April 28, 2019 by Dreamaticus

I burst out of the house in Birmingham and accidentally barged a drag queen out of my way. She started to follow me and we wrestled a bit until I realised just how much she looked like Gloria Grahame. After sharing this insight we became the best of friends.

There were four of us around a table and a colleague was passing me papers to collate. As I passed them on to Michael Portillo he complained that they were not in order and I was sabotaging him and I’d never liked him anyway. Angrily I challenged him. Not only was I simply passing on the un-numbered pages as I was receiving them, I LOVED his train programmes and I was very fond of him. I saw him tearing up.

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The right way to hang wallpaper (Rousse)

Posted on April 26, 2019 by Dreamaticus

TPR was setting up a new home office. At the same time – and in the same room – I was preparing a nursery for a visiting toddler. These two activities were clearly incompatible.

Everything came to a head when TPR angrily tore down the green patterned wallpaper that I had ‘pasted’ to the wall with water.

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Escape from Brexit (Rousse)

Posted on April 25, 2019 by Dreamaticus

It was meant to be a two-hour morning meeting to discuss the requirements of the advertised posts and the candidates to be interviewed in the afternoon. About 45 minutes in one of my colleagues started an irrelevant rant about Brexit.

Fifteen minutes later he was speaking to an empty room. We had all made the excuse of ‘another meeting at 10:00am’ to escape him.

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