A near-death experience in Alpine ski resort (Rousse)

Posted on October 11, 2014 by Dreamaticus

On the last day of our holiday we chose not to ski, but instead wandered around the resort and the technical college. There we bumped into other friends from home, including HW with a group of girlfriends; and S, N, A and C.

The latter group’s trip had not been a success. A had not wanted to book a package holiday. Instead he made reservations for everyone on a scheduled flight and hired a car to bring the party up to the resort. He had not counted on the dangers of driving on the fast icy Alpine roads, and his passengers’ holiday was almost ruined by the journey. Then they all discovered that they hated ski-ing.

N followed me into the technical college. Here I fell onto a trash conveyor belt in the basement. I was heading towards the enormous metal teeth of the crusher when I was rescued by a maintenance man and returned to the safety of N’s arms.

While I’d been in mortal danger, N had bought over-sized red lollipops for each of his four daughters.

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Good academic conduct (Rousse)

Posted on October 10, 2014 by Dreamaticus

MS made us sit through a multimedia training video that covered topics such as the disappointing award of non-English (specifically not “non-British”) degrees to Chinese students, plagiarism, bribery, and the spending of departmental funds on whisky. JK played all the lead roles.

On the bus home afterwards I tried to contact S by text on an ancient mobile phone to suggest we go for a drink. When I couldn’t get through to him I decided this was probably a good thing. His wife would not be pleased if she heard I’d be out with him while she was away.

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Drunk driver claims “only quarter of a glass” defence (Rousse)

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Dreamaticus

J drove us home from the restaurant. M sat in the front passenger seat, my father behind him, and my mother took the middle of the back seat.

From my position behind J it soon became obvious that she was not the best choice of driver. She sped through small rural towns at top speed, ignoring my pleas to slow down. It was inevitable that there would soon be an accident. First she clipped a blue Capri, but refused to stop to inspect the damage. When she took out a white minibus she had no option but to pull into the verge and call the police.

“I’m a slut” she announced down the phone. It was only then that I realised that she was drunk.

“I only had a quarter of a glass of white wine” she claimed.

“More like half a bottle” my father muttered.

I wondered how she would cope with her rural lifestyle when her licence was confiscated.

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Murderer serves lunch to transsexual surprise guest feet away from victim’s remains in biscuit tin (Rousse)

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Dreamaticus

I planned X’s murder to coincide with his holiday. That way nobody would miss him when he didn’t turn up to work. While I deliberated over where to dump his body parts, I kept them in a small round red biscuit tin hidden under the dresser. I considered throwing them into the sea at Granton, but worried that they would wash up on the shore. An alternative plot was to bury the tin in a remote spot in the Scottish highlands. The disadvantage of this was that the choice of location and previous ownership of the tin could easily be traced back to me if the remains were ever discovered.

So on the day that Y and Z came round for lunch they sat at the dining table just feet away from the butchered body parts of our dead colleague, neatly packed away in the airtight tin. (Fortunately there was no smell.)

To add to the entertainment I was coming to terms with the recent news that Y was taking a six month sabbatical to visit her ex-wife and children in Australia. When I had earlier questioned the term “ex-wife” Y pointed to a black and white photograph pinned to her noticeboard. There, in a big safari hat and flares, was a young man who bore a striking resemblance to Y. “That’s me in the early 1970s” she explained, “before I underwent gender realignment surgery”.

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Simon Cowell champions women in science (Rousse)

Posted on October 8, 2014 by Dreamaticus

It was all very well for so-called consultants and other well-wishers to advise me to share out the work, but everyone else was just so busy – and I couldn’t trust them to do the job properly anyway. Everything was in such a mess. A measure of this was that I had not managed to check the minutes from one meeting to the next.

However, we did have some good ideas. A newly appointed Canadian colleague suggested a more gung ho approach. Another said that we should not sneer at the involvement of Simon Cowell, but embrace his interest in our work on women in science.

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Wailing bagpipes and sweet guitars (Rousse)

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Dreamaticus

The awful wailing sound coming from the direction of the stage was TM on bagpipes. “He should stick to the guitar”, I muttered.

Then CI took the stage. Her tunes were much better.

Then someone said it was TPR’s turn. I wasn’t convinced that the world was yet ready for his musical début – and nor was he.

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From a cliff top penthouse to a pokey Glasgow bedsit (Rousse)

Posted on October 6, 2014 by Dreamaticus

TPR and I lived in a tiny, but gorgeous, penthouse suite perched on a cliff with beautiful views of the blue sea crashing onto the rocks 100 feet below. We liked to leap from the cliff edge into the water, and encouraged all our visitors to do the same, fully dressed. This was very dangerous so we usually wore our cycling helmets for such activity. GW also took the precaution of using climbing ropes.

One day my jump was so wide that I resurfaced in a railway station in Glasgow, with my cycling helmet in tatters.

How would I get home? I certainly couldn’t swim to the shore from here. It was my intention to buy a train ticket to Edinburgh. Sadly I was somehow conned into staying in Glasgow, where I signed a rental agreement for a pokey city centre bedsit strewn with litter.

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Bike crime in Humshaugh (Rousse)

Posted on October 6, 2014 by Dreamaticus

My cousin N and I were cycling across Northumberland to Hexham on his blue bike. When we reached Humshaugh I asked if we could stop for a while to admire the Georgian high street. N agreed, but only on the condition that I would look after the bike.

I wandered over to a group of people to pet their dog. When N joined us he asked about the whereabouts of the bike. I looked around and all I could see was a section of the crossbar and the paniers. All the other parts – the handle bar, seat, and wheels – had been stolen.

There was nothing else for it but to stand by the side of the road and try and hitch a lift for the last few miles of our journey.

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Unwanted romantic advances, a “lost” suitcase, and death at the fun run (Rousse)

Posted on October 5, 2014 by Dreamaticus

I’d loved him for some time now, but his drunken advances, although flattering, were not welcome – especially in front of my parents. When he followed me upstairs to my hotel room I was suddenly overcome with a chill of fear. What would happen if he insisted in coming inside?

I needn’t have worried: he was apprehended on the landing by hotel staff who knew that he didn’t have a booking. He would be ejected from the hotel and I would be able to sleep in peace, free of his attention and inappropriate questions about the state of my marriage.

The next day, when it was it was time for me to check out, the hotel staff could not find my suitcase, even though they had previously issued a receipt for it. I couldn’t wait for them to empty every case in their storeroom to find my belongings so I said that they could keep them if they ever found them. (It later turned out that I had not left my suitcase at the hotel. It was safely stored in the cellar at home!)

Our journey home was difficult because all the trams and buses were fully booked and there were no hire cars available. JC stewarded us to the railway station to catch a train one stop from where a taxi would drive us back to Edinburgh at a cost of £100.

As we waited for the taxi (in competition with a blonde woman in a pink and blue wool dress) we watched the festival parade pass by along the main road. This was part of the entertainment on the day of a fun run. The most impressive display was a Victorian funeral procession complete with glossy black horses decorated with feathers in their halters. Then we spotted TPR in a red car with two small children in the back. He brought news that the run had ended in disaster when a competitor had been killed in road traffic accident.

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A temporary loss of digits and dancing to the Wombles (Rousse)

Posted on October 4, 2014 by Dreamaticus

One of us was required to chop off all digits on the hands. TPR bravely volunteered. Then he headed off to Reading to meet MP before the big party. They spent the morning engaged in geeky conversation and activities.

I followed after lunch as one of AP’s guests. She couldn’t receive us until later in the day due to her long appointment with the hairdresser.

It took a while before I found TPR at the party. He was crouched down against a far wall somewhat disguised in a suit. I hoped that he would join me on the dance floor for Remember you’re a Womble.

Afterwards we had to deal with TPR’s stumpy hands. We had kept the eight fingers and two thumbs safe so all we needed to do was find someone who could sew them all back on again.

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