My brother-in-law MF was driving our car with TPR in the passenger seat. I was in the back with another brother-in-law, RH.
It was going to be a long day. Our route was (1) Glasgow to Wisborough Green to drop off MF, then (2) to London for our third visit in a week (to drop off RH), and (3) a final leg back to Edinburgh.
The senior examiner M-LH was ready to approve the award of PhD, and it looked that GW would also agree with this outcome. However, I was adamant that the student make major corrections to the thesis.
This said something to me about the declining international standards of work at doctoral level.
EH, TPR and I were amongst the audience at a one-woman play by Samuel Beckett. International cellist US was the star of the show.
She delivered her lines very quietly and – apart from those sitting very close to the stage – very few in the auditorium could hear her clearly. Then a child in the row behind us started to strunch up strips of tissue paper, making it impossible for us to hear anything at all.
At the end of the performance the director asked us if we had enjoyed the show. TPR did not hold back. He declared in a very loud voice ‘This is the worst play that I have ever seen!’
On the day that I chucked ECM for writing the most cruel anonymous letters about me I went out for lunch with the M family in the Bois de Boulogne.
Other guests at the table included my sister S, and our other sister’s ex-boyfriend DU.
I joined Katie Price and Peter Mandelson as an extra on a film set in Edinburgh.
Up close Katie Price looked terrible. Her face was a patchwork of plastic surgery and the reconstruction of her teeth barely disguised.
We arrived in Antigua a day too early for our holiday so were obliged to fly back home immediately.
Unfortunately after all this additional travel we slept through the alarm on the day that we were meant to set off for the Caribbean. As a result we missed out on our holiday completely.
The bathroom window provided a perfect frame for the Hebridean scene of highland cattle grazing beside the vast beach. Clouds raced across the sky overhead.
I captured all this as a time-lapse video on my iPhone – then just as I was about to show it to everyone, I deleted it.
I hadn’t appreciated the urgency of AB’s departure from Musselburgh until after her parents WB and AB had waved her off in a taxi back to the city centre. Indeed I was quite upset because I could have shared the ride (and fare) with her. I was keen to get back into town with my two enormous carrier bags of cushion wadding.
WB offered to order another taxi, but I decided I would brave the number 26 bus instead. However, I had forgotten that all the buses were diverted due to the Viking parade that afternoon.
I stood on the high street waiting for the parade to pass: it was actually quite fun to watch. Then I found an operational bus stop and a service that would take me home.
I was keen to learn the geography of Loughborough. So instead of taking a taxi, I walked from the city centre to the out-of-town hill-top university campus. I was surprised at how few students I saw en route. I guessed that they were probably put off the walk by the steep hill, but it was no challenge to me.
I walked through the first set of campus gates, hopeful that I would soon find the Department of Information Science. The moment that I saw the university library I knew that I was in right place.
However, when I entered the lift in the main building, I discovered that I was on my way to the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Strathclyde.
Whoever knew that Loughborough and Glasgow were located so close together?
Dreamaticus 
Frank Underwood comments on flood conditions (Rousse)
When I visited Frank Underwood in Washington I had no choice but to drive. As things turned out it was not as difficult as I feared to navigate the roads from the suburbs into the city centre.
When I mentioned this to Frank he explained that his own commute could take anything from thirty minutes to an hour, depending on the flood conditions.
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