Celebrating Easter on Holy Island – as an alternative to Match of the Day (Rousse)

Posted on April 1, 2016 by Dreamaticus

I lost control of my class completely. Instead of discussing the latest research in knowledge management, the students watched repeats of Match of the Day in class each Wednesday afternoon. There were some who objected to this – including PhD student LK – but they were powerless to win over the majority (who appeared to be happy to waste their education).

Eventually a South African student declared that he had had enough. He and two friends (one of whom was a football fan) took me on a road trip to the north of England. We ended up on Holy Island at Easter. The minister mistook us for pilgrims and invited us all to join the celebrations.

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Bespoke wedding toilet roll (Rousse)

Posted on March 31, 2016 by Dreamaticus

The bride-to-be introduced me to the latest hot trend in wedding stationery: personalised toilet tissue. On each perforated section was the name of a wedding guest. She asked me to go through the whole roll to identify whether any of those named had special dietary requirements.

I spotted the names of DT, BP and NP – but not my own. I was somewhat disappointed not to feature on this novel guest list.

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A leap to death from a floating shopping trolley (Rousse)

Posted on March 29, 2016 by Dreamaticus

We floated in our shopping trolleys high above the river on a beautiful summer’s day. Then the old lady – my friend’s mother – jumped.

I knew that she didn’t stand a chance. Her neck broke the moment that her body reached the shallow water below.

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How to flirt 1980s style (Rousse)

Posted on March 28, 2016 by Dreamaticus

My expertise did not stretch to biomedical science, yet I was charged with delivering a lecture to the new first years.

I won them over in the first few minutes with a couple of jokes, then kept their interest by asking them to reconstruct the beginnings of a campus relationship in the early 1980s. Although they were enthusiastic with their suggestions, they really had no idea of how to build a romantic relationship without the help of mobile phone technology.

They were spellbound as I explained the torturously slow mechanics of flirting through messages pinned to departmental noticeboards.

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No room at the office (Rousse)

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Dreamaticus

I couldn’t fit into my office because it was overrun by PhD students and the keynote speaker of their forthcoming doctoral colloquium (AB).

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Unemployed Sunderland couple give daughter away (Rousse)

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Dreamaticus

Who was this small dark-haired, short-legged child with a Scottish accent living with the mother of my childhood friend ECM? She couldn’t possibly be ECM’s little sister: her mother had been widowed for years. A neighbour (and known fantasist) suggested that ECM’s brother M was the child’s father. This was also nonsensical.

I met ECM in Bath, where she explained to me what had happened. When she was employed by Sunderland Polytechnic there had been a series of redundancies. Two of her former colleagues could no longer afford to keep their daughter. ECM had stepped in and passed the child on to her mother for long-term care.

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£10 fine for library book ten years overdue (Rousse)

Posted on March 26, 2016 by Dreamaticus

DMcA left the library having confessed that the book that he had just returned was ten years overdue.

Now it was my turn to be served. I hastily waved my library card over the machine reader. In doing so I accidentally paid DMcA’s outstanding fine of £10.

There was nothing that the library assistant could do to correct this. I should have waited until DMcA had been fully logged off the system before attempting to check my own borrower record.

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Birthday beanie hats (Rousse)

Posted on March 26, 2016 by Dreamaticus

I had forgotten all about my latest knitting project until I saw GB walk past the bus depot on Annandale Street.

I resolved get to work on the beanie hat that I had promised to knit for her birthday, and then make a start on a second one for NP.

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Camilla commemorated in roadside shrine to lost sash (Rousse)

Posted on March 24, 2016 by Dreamaticus

Did anyone really care that at this bend in the single track road Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, once lost a sash from her dress?

TPR and I were thoroughly sickened at the over-commercialisation of the Isle of Mull.

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Bare-chested 80s music fan caught on film (Rousse)

Posted on March 22, 2016 by Dreamaticus

‘There you are! There you are!’ I shouted as TPR and I watched the old video footage of an audience at a music concert in the mid-1980s.

The young TPR wasn’t that difficult to spot. Bare-chested in the third row, he was waving his grey T shirt above his head in time to the music.

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