I am one the few people who know the secret of the fifth floor of the British Library.
If ever lost in this august building, you should come to this level and turn left along the balcony above the reading room.
At the far end you will find the old-fashioned lift, operated by a pale young man. Climb into the lift, ask for the ground floor, be prepared for your ears to pop, and enjoy the journey downwards and back out into the open again.
All the kitchen staff in the Outer Hebridean guest house were Chinese Geordies, famous for their signature dish of pan-fried sausages.
The others instantly recognised me as an academic. One told me that she had previously considered me a suitable candidate to co-supervise a PhD student with her, even before I confirmed my identity. Encouraged by her enthusiasm for my work, I offered my services as external examiner instead.
Formal introductions made, they then asked me if I’d heard from BMcNX. The only information that I was able to give them was that I was aware that she and her husband were apart during the week because of her job.
‘That’s what they would like you to believe’ they informed me. ‘However, the real reason that they barely see one another is that her husband is gay’.
I forced my father to remove his ‘Have you cleaned your teeth?’ chart from the hall wall. He put it in the bathroom instead.
My next mission was to persuade TPR to get a plumber in to fix the lavatory – and perhaps even completely upgrade the avocado bathroom suite.
I murdered GW with a plan: to blame the cats for her death.
I was determined that the engineering students gained an appreciation of social research methods. They needed access to a decent textbook so I took one down to the library to add to its stock.
A photograph dropped out of the book when I handed it over to the librarian. The picture was of Pete Murphy. The engineering lecturers with me in the library insisted that I was wrong and that the man depicted was Liam Neeson. If they couldn’t distinguish the lead singer of 80s goth band Bauhaus from a Hollywood film star, how would they ever appreciate the subtleties of qualitative research?
SK, now blind, bumped into me as I was leaving the library. She was delighted to ‘see’ me and confirmed our lunch date in the British Library the following week.
Back out on the street I found a tiny abandoned miniature foal lying on the pavement. I called my father the vet to find out how to treat it.
We spent the afternoon watching old films on television in the sitting room. Fortunately nobody sat on the green-threaded needles that KT found at my end of the sofa.
Then, when we saw that snow had fallen late in the day and we technically had a white Christmas, we set off for a walk across the frozen wastes above Edinburgh. The route was tricky in places, especially along the wrought iron ladder that you had to climb backwards.
Suddenly I found myself alone separated from TPR. A gang of teenage boys attempted to kidnap me and I only just managed to escape – by biting and tickling them.
Free once more I headed home on the bus along London Road, admiring the enormous faded paper poppies that the council had placed as Christmas decoration in the branches of the trees that lined the street.
This should not have been the highlight of the New York conference, but I was extremely flattered to be the object of CDX’s affections. It barely crossed my mind that TPR would not approve of my affair.
In any case, we only slept together three times, and I reckoned that if it was OK with CDX’s third wife, then nor would my first husband be bothered.
It was only on my way to the gig in Paris that I realised the folly of my offer to Kevin F Sutherland to put on the season’s first performance of the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre.
I didn’t know the lines, couldn’t do the accent, and there was no way that I would be able to make the right puppet speak at the right time. Kev’s business would go belly up – all because of me.
Dreamaticus 