Tom O’Connor deplored (Rousse)

Posted on August 25, 2013 by Dreamaticus

Tom O’Connor, his two teenage daughters and I sat next to each other as members of the judging panel. Each performance was as dire as the one that preceded it. This was so incredibly tedious, and we weren’t even half way through the list.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Time-travelling academic gives conflicting advice (Rousse)

Posted on August 24, 2013 by Dreamaticus

I couldn’t work out how I would get to my office across the flooded swamp of campus. The assistant dean appeared to be leading us one way, but just behind us his younger self (plus wife and three children) was issuing a different set of directions. How extraordinary that my colleague’s powers included time travel!

Perhaps it would just be more profitable to play in the abandoned blue truck, or sit through the West End musical that we could hear blasting out from the theatre across the street?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Failed dirty weekend with UK’s leading homosexual (Belle)

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Dreamaticus

I had been whisked off to a beautiful hotel by my ex boyfriend G, a former professional footballer.  However, it was now Saturday afternoon and I hadn’t actually seen him since we checked in 24 hours previously. 

I sought assistance from the housekeeper who helped me locate him in the cleaning cupboard just behind the supermarket tills.  He had decided that being cramped in the cupboard with his work was much more interesting than spending time with me.  He had also transformed into Rupert Everett.

I was justifiably livid.  “Why did you not tell me you were the UK’s leading homosexual?” I shouted.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Leicestershire treasure haul “given away” to tinkers (Rousse)

Posted on August 22, 2013 by Dreamaticus

I enjoyed watching the workmen dig the trenches across the Leicestershire field as they prepared the ground for a new motorway. They invited me to jump down into a small pit where they had piled up interesting objects discovered during the excavations.

Most of the debris comprised pre-decimal coins from the twentieth century. However, I also recognised some Roman currency, and several heart-shaped silver coins stamped with the word “Prague” or “Antigua”.

When I asked what the workmen what they planned to do with all this treasure, they replied “We always give our finds away to the tinkers who live in the hills”.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Surrogate mother surprise (Rousse)

Posted on August 22, 2013 by Dreamaticus

JG astonished all when she admitted at the university reunion that her big career move in the past ten years was to offer up her body as a surrogate mother. She reported no psychological damage from giving up the baby that she carried for nine months, and that her husband G gave her his full support.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

New Russian tabby cat stud (Rousse)

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Dreamaticus

TPR announced that we were setting up a cat stud. We would start with four golden-striped Russian tabbies.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Drunken wife escapes cruel husband in the Outer Hebrides (Rousse)

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Dreamaticus

Back from our holiday, TPR resumed his cruelty towards me. I couldn’t work out why he had attached an electrical cord to me, nor why his university pals were now pulling on it, but I was determined to escape from whatever his evil plot comprised.

I broke free and ran down to the shore. The sea was just too tempting. Although I was drunk, fully-dressed and knew that this was madness, I leapt into the waves. This was where I really belonged: playing on the beaches of the Outer Hebrides.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A heartless sister (Rousse)

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Dreamaticus

My brother went missing somewhere near the crocus-laden river bank in Toronto. I felt some responsibility for this, but my mind was elsewhere: my trip to the theatre with Belle, and a whole night sitting next to each other in row F.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Desperate nuns resort to kidnap to drive up convent recruitment figures (Rousse)

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Dreamaticus

I always hated the return to work after my holiday, but what made this worse was that the campus had been moved from Corstorphine in Edinburgh to Perry Barr in Birmingham, and there was nobody there other than me. I walked out to the main road to see anyone that I knew happened to be in the vicinity.

I was hopeful when a car pulled up next to me. “Friends?” I wondered. I was mistaken. Out jumped half a dozen hippy terrorists brandishing weapons. I ran for my life.

A woman in a headscarf and a long robe rushed to my rescue. She pulled me into a people carrier crammed with women dressed just like her. I was so happy to be safe again in calm, female company. My relief was short-lived, however, when I realised that these nuns were my captors, that I would never return to the job that I loved, and instead would be forced to enter the convent.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Avoiding unwelcome music and copyright infringement (Rousse)

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Dreamaticus

While I had been on holiday “they” had dismantled my desk and moved everything into a massive shared office where music chosen by NU blared out all day. Only RK showed any concern for the effect of this on my mental well-being.

One consolation was that there was a new member of admin staff: a short, grey-haired lady of 50 (she actually looked much older) who was happy to photocopy articles from the Journal of Information Science for me, just so long as my requests did not infringe copyright.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment