National Insurance contributions for a private school teacher (Rousse)

I accepted a job as a teacher at the tiny private prep school that my grandmother operated from the extension at the back of her house.

I hoped that this was all above board, and that she would pay my National Insurance contributions.

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Arnold Schwartzenegger’s boring speech (Rousse)

Two of my Polish colleagues had commandeered my office while I was on long-term sick leave. My desk and other belongings were now all squeezed into a dark corner. I hoped that this was a temporary measure and that I would be able to claim back all my space when I returned to work.

I took a wander from my office down to the campus basement so that I could visit the university foundry. I loved watching the melt as it poured into the moulds. Again, I was disappointed. The foundry was empty of workers due to the Easter holiday. The only other person there was a member of office admin staff. She was checking a temperature on an enormous old-fashioned gauge under the instruction of KC.

My colleague told me that it would be worth popping into the gym on our way back to our offices because Arnold Schwartzenegger was scheduled to give a talk there in a few minutes. I found myself a spot on the parquet floor (not far from AMcN, who had slipped out of the library to see the Hollywood hero) and waited for the famous speaker to arrive.

Schwartzenegger’s presentation was very dull so I didn’t stay until the end. Instead I left early with JG, following a route by river boat then up a mountain pass. Here we ran into RA and two of his young children. I surprised RA with a rather enthusiastic kiss (which he may have mistaken for a snog).

The day finished with a party at a members’ club for hill walkers hosted by JG and RA. Amongst the guests was my school friend KM and her sister SM. They spent the whole evening amusing themselves by pretending to be a married couple.

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Tamsin Greig caught up in sewage crisis (Rousse)

No wonder our tiny bathroom was awash with debris from the domestic sewage system. There were simply far too many people in the house, and the drains could no longer cope with the increased use of the facilities.

Somehow TPR and I needed to rid ourselves of these unwanted visitors, especially those who were sleeping in our bedroom. A few were in a white divan next to the wardrobe, others were on the floor, and we had Tamsin Greig sandwiched between us in our own bed.

In the meantime I wondered who was going to clean up the raw sewage that was now seeping across the tiles and out of the bathroom door and into the green bedroom carpet? It was Thursday, but TPR considered such a task beyond the call of duty of our weekly cleaner.

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New efficient technique for unwanted hair removal (Rousse)

SM’s new party trick was to half-swallow a wire, lodge it in his throat, use it to grasp the hairs outside on his neck from the inside, pull the hairs through the skin, and bring them back out of his mouth.

‘This is so much more efficient than shaving’, he declared.

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A mistaken victim of a murderous niece (Rousse)

They thought that they had found the (whole) body of my aunt.

This was impossible. After the murder I had disposed of the corpse very carefully, cut it into many pieces, and distributed them over several sites.

This was clearly someone else’s victim.

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A graffiti grudge (Rousse)

We knew that something was wrong as soon as we emerged from our bedroom and walked into the hall. Someone had broken into our flat and scrawled messages in silver ink on the carpet. In the kitchen similar graffiti covered the dresser.

Our uninvited overnight ‘guest’ appeared to have a grudge against our family business. Whether or not our lives were endangered as a result, it was impossible to tell.

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A wasted wedding day in Edinburgh (Rousse)

This had to be the most boring and short-lived wedding celebration of all time.

Although some of my most interesting school friends were amongst the guests (including JB and GB, now a married couple themselves), TPR and I were sitting at a table where the main topic of conversation was pallets. RA and CH, both from near Hull, were leading the debate. I was thankful, however, that there was something to engage us, whether or not it was interesting: at all the other tables the wedding guests were eating in silence.

Somehow the family of the bride did not seem to think that anything was wrong. Indeed, they openly boasted about the ingenuity of limiting the celebrations to just three hours on a Saturday afternoon, and took immense pleasure in removing the table decorations (hand-made by the mother-of-the-bride) after the first course was served. This seemed to me such a wasted opportunity, not least because they had hired one of the top Edinburgh hotels as the wedding venue.

So distracted was I in internally criticising everything that I witnessed that I accidentally broke my three-week alcohol fast by taking a sip of red wine at the dining table.

Meanwhile TPR was disappointed that nobody had noticed how we had cleverly coordinated our outfits: he in a black sari and me in a long, floaty, semi-transparent black silk dress.

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Encounters with chartered surveyors (Rousse)

I had encounters with two chartered surveyors on the same day.

The first – RA – spoke to me of his ‘elephantine’ features as contrasted with my ‘beauty’ as he walked me to a tube station in London.

I did not see the second – AH – in person. Instead someone pointed out to me his award-winning sculpture. This took the form of a large chestnut that emerged through a garden wall of a leafy English suburb.

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A deadly bed and breakfast (Rousse)

It must have been cold in Susan Morrison’s bed and breakfast because TPR was wearing JH’s woollen beanie hat in bed (while JH slept on the floor beside us).

It was a dangerous trek across the field to breakfast the next morning. The third day I slipped, fell under the barbed wire fence, and slid all the way down the grass bank to the edge of the snake-infested river. I tried to climb back up again, but the bank was too steep and slippery. My only option was to jump in the water and swim to the dining room.

TPR could not leave me to brave the river and the snakes alone, so he joined me in the water too. We drifted along with the flow quite happily until we reached a high weir. The fast flowing torrent here was highly dangerous and we needed to get out – fast!

Back on land again we raided the cubicles in the public swimming baths for a couple of discarded towels. We had surely missed breakfast, but at least we were out of the water.

A few days later, safely back at home in our enormous mansion, we learnt that the bed and breakfast was a front. The proprietor was a murderess whose habit was to stack up the multiple rotting corpses of her ‘guests’ in otherwise unoccupied beds. Even though she hadn’t managed to kill us, she still sent us a bill for three nights accommodation (including breakfast). This infuriated TPR.

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Is Dr Who to blame for a shrinking world? (Rousse)

When the elevator doors opened I was disappointed to see that the lift was minuscule. How would we all fit in there?

‘Just go in one at a time’ my colleague suggested. It was clear that she could not see the problem.

I pulled the carriage out of the lift shaft, placed it on the floor, then put my foot on top of it. This made it obvious that the carriage was smaller than my shoe.

In the distance I could see the BBC buildings. I wondered whether this shrinking world might have something to do with Dr Who?

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