When an interactive workshop goes wrong (Rousse)

Posted on December 8, 2012 by Dreamaticus

This five day interactive workshop was not delivering creative ideas as anticipated. The participants were merely going through the motions of the exercises that they were set, and appeared to have no interest whatsoever in forming research relationships with one another.

I overheard a woman say to a posh ginger-haired man “You’re already ‘Sir-what’s-his-name’. By the time you leave here you will be a lord, and it will be beneath you to associate with anybody as common as me”. He replied that anyone would be welcome to visit him on his family estate, but this offer was not taken seriously by the others.

One woman was so traumatised by the workshop experience that she hid under the white linen cloth that covered a round table in the middle of the room. I knew that she was a children’s author so I tried to tempt her out by asking if she would sign a copy of her latest book for me. All she had on her were copies that had already been signed for other people. She could not give me one of these. As a compromise she tore the title page out of one of the books destined for someone else and added her signature to it. To show my appreciation I joined her under the table and we played with some robots that my university friend MP had made earlier in the day.

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Canine distemper vaccine coincidence (Rousse)

Posted on December 8, 2012 by Dreamaticus

The safest place was the basement. Here AC and EF explained why they were in hiding. Then the front doorbell rang. Our hosts hesitated to answer it. What would happen if they did so?

In the end they ignored the caller, and instead AC brought out an old, black plastic, blue-labelled, Vaxitas box. He was keen to reveal the contents, but was inhibited somewhat by my excitement. Never before had I met anyone else beyond my own family who stored their most precious belongings in these 1970s canine distemper vaccine boxes. How extraordinary!

It all made sense when I remembered that AC was a vet’s child too. His collection of Vaxitas boxes probably rivalled my own.

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Andy Gray takes to the stage in Kev F Sutherland’s latest show (Rousse)

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Dreamaticus

My run as the new female lead in Kev F Sutherland’s latest comedy and magic show had been going so well. I’d pulled in huge crowds at the football stadium. Some loyal fans returned night after night, mainly for the opportunity to take part in the geeky “prototype challenge” in the middle of the show where audience members were invited to help improve the previous night’s performance.

Everything changed the night that Kev’s original show-woman unexpectedly returned to open the act. Laura did her piece, and then I was meant to pick up where she left off. The problem was that I was incapable of this. When she left the stage I simply couldn’t remember what came next. I knew was that it was some kind of mime with a balloon followed by a joke, but that was it.

In a complete panic I ran up to the lighting desk to hunt down Kev and ask him for the script. All he could give me was a till receipt with a list scribbled on the back of it. Were these song titles, gags, or set names? I was none the wiser.

By the time I returned to the stage half the audience had left in disgust. In my place retired footballer Andy Gray had taken to the stage with his guitar to entertain those who remained.

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The apprehension of Interpol’s most wanted (Rousse)

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Dreamaticus

We were coming to the end of the Christmas vacation and were thoroughly partied out. When TM, SC and I returned to our hotel at 06:40 after another heavy night, we wondered how on earth we would cope with getting out of bed at the same time when we returned to work two days later.

I had spent so much of the vacation at this hotel in the company of Pavros that the staff now assumed that we were romantically connected. They’d even attached a special nameplate in our honour to my hotel bedroom door. I didn’t mind, so long as TPR never saw it. Pavros and I were, obviously, not an item – short and stocky, he simply wasn’t my type – although I did enjoy his company. Anyway, he had just spent most of the evening with a slim, dark-haired, 17 year-old, Greek girl, and it looked like he would be bringing her back to our room for what was left of the night.

We let ourselves in and prepared for bed. Just as I was about to turn in for the “night” four uniformed men stepped quietly through the bedroom door. They mouthed that I should remain quiet, then indicated their quarry through the clever us of hand signals. It appeared that I had been harbouring an international criminal for the past fortnight, and this squad from Interpol had come to apprehend him. My role for now was to ensure that Pavros came quietly.

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Puppet maker passenger puts her trust in the professor (Rousse)

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Dreamaticus

Stuck in traffic, I noticed a woman with a baby on her lap at the bus window. Seated towards the back of the ground floor of the bus, and almost level with us, she was the spitting image of JS. When our queue edged forward, TPR pointed out another identical woman. She was travelling a few seats further forward from the first.

TPR wound down our passenger side window and attempted to attract the attention of the two women. They both waved back enthusiastically, then one confirmed that they both already knew that they looked like clones of JS because we’d pointed this out to them in the past.

“Give them my business card”, I instructed TPR, “and persuade one of them to pass over hers. Then we can ask them to send a couple of photos to be forwarded to JS.”

The women were dubious that we were trustworthy enough to share contact details. “Read my card!” I insisted, “I am a respectable person”. The job title of “professor” appeared to win her over, and soon I was clutching the contact details of one of women. It said that she was a puppet maker based in Bristol. With such credentials, I wondered whether she had ever heard of the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre.

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Badger Peeping Tom discovered in ladies’ toilets (Rousse)

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Dreamaticus

It was not so unusual for me to meet up with my university pals SL and HJ (or SC and HJ as they were), but when we also saw GG and GK come into the café, we were rather surprised. We left the pair of them alone to chat for a while on a table not so far from ours, and before long we had forgotten that they were even there. It was only when a third man entered the room that we started to sit up and really take notice. Dressed in a tweed jacket, and looking exactly as we remembered from the mid-1980s, PM approached the boys’ table.

If this was not enough excitement for one day, I later found a Peeping Tom in the ladies’ toilets. Hanging over the cubicle, and observing me at close range, was an an adult badger. What on earth was a badger was doing out and about in the middle of the day?

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A rally driving experience for Rousse

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Dreamaticus

I was waiting outside Birdham St James church for the instruction to change into my wedding outfit when TPR asked me to accompany him and our brother-in-law RH to the Isle of Lewis. I jumped into the car, and before long we found ourselves in the Outer Hebrides.

What I hadn’t appreciated was that the bride and groom intended to marry in private on Uig Sands (in the rain, unfortunately), then travel back to Birdham for the church ceremony. Nor did I know that I was meant to be participating with TPR and RH in both events. It was alright for the two of them: they were already dressed in their morning suits. I, however, was wearing a worn and faded black linen skirt, a tatty old jumper, and lilac pop socks. There was no way that I would appear in public in such an outfit.

So, while TPR and RH headed off to the first part of the ceremony (with a woman called Andrea in a yellow trouser suit), I spent the rest of the day racing around the island by myself. Although the car brakes weren’t working and I didn’t wear a seatbelt, I somehow survived my designed-on-the-fly Hebridean rally course.

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Levitation and French poetry (Rousse)

Posted on December 2, 2012 by Dreamaticus

I tried so hard to resist, but I just couldn’t help myself levitate at the reunion. GG tried to talk me down as I floated up to the ceiling, but the pull upwards was too great, and I soon disappeared through the hatch into the attic.

By the time I came back down again I was determined to find FD to complete some unfinished business. We’d been such good friends in our early teens, then lost touch. Reunited again, we were now about to embark on a joint writing project. Our book on the life and work of an unknown (as yet) French poet was bound to be an international bestseller.

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Holy Island attractions: gannet catching and whale riding (Rousse)

Posted on December 1, 2012 by Dreamaticus

All these years I’d hankered over a cottage with sea views, yet failed to acknowledge that my needs were already met by the house on Holy Island. Now that the developers had started work, I finally recognised my stupidity in so rarely taking advantage of such easy access to the family’s shared holiday cottage. The huge new windows going into all the houses along the small terrace could only enhance their value as ideal viewpoints for Lindisfarne castle, Bamburgh, and beyond.

A group of us wandered down to the beach where we dropped our belongings near a sand dune, then headed off to play along the shoreline. Our party was rather unusual in that it comprised several pairs of twins, plus a couple of 1995 graduates (KW and CS), both of whom I hadn’t seen for a long time. CS was particularly entertaining with his mid-air gannet catching, and whale riding.

Unfortunately we were having so much fun that we failed to notice the tide creep up the beach and wash away our belongings, including AM’s camera! A further problem was that with the tide at its height, we were now stranded on the island overnight, and I would not get back home in time to visit Granny H in hospital.

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Bimbo’s return (Rousse)

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Dreamaticus

My colleague ST clearly did not expect to see me at work that day. She’d taken over the whole office by moving the furniture around and inviting in a whole hoard of students. Now there was nowhere for me to sit and work.

“I’m glad you’re here” she said. “I didn’t know what to do about the dog”.

I glanced across the room and caught sight of a small white poodle. The dog was my responsibility: it was my music teacher Miss J’s pet. I hadn’t seen Bimbo since the late 1970s, but there was no denying that he was alive and well – and completely out of place on a university campus.

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