Belle in high heels

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Dreamaticus

With the fashion for ever higher heels gathering pace, I was considered one of the best ‘walkers’ in the world. Even with 10 inch wedge-soled shoes, I could walk elegantly over the cobbled streets of the City of London. They were making a documentary about me.

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Isle of Lewis camper van rescue (Rousse)

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Dreamaticus

The weather turned vile and we wondered how our friends N and S were coping in the howling wind and torrential rain on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis. They couldn’t possibly be out in the open cycling, could they? There was only one way to find out: to travel there ourselves and join (rescue) them.

We found them at Garynahine in a camper van! They had abandoned their original accommodation plans soon after arrival on discovering that the guest house was not all that the web site had promised. We persuaded N and S that all was not lost. TPR and I would show them a great time on the other side of the bay.

TPR took charge of the navy blue mark 2 VW Golf and I clambered into the camper van. Somewhat alarming were N’s driving skills. She seemed to assume that the vehicle knew the route. She frequently let go of the steering wheel to move across the van and look out the window on the other side. At this rate we would end up spending the rest of the holiday embedded in a peat bog rather than on the beach.

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Dreamaticus cited in medical negligence claim (Rousse)

Posted on April 2, 2012 by Dreamaticus

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I glimpsed the headline stretched across the scrap of newspaper trapped under the café chair leg. We were sitting outside the Bakehouse on Broughton Street, newly reopened after last year’s fire damage, half-listening to a slim grey-haired stranger enthuse about Blipfoto. I would have joined in the conversation, but first I had to read this news report. How on earth had the word “Dreamaticus” crept into a newspaper by-line?

For months Belle and I had craved fame for our dream journal, but not for a story such as this. If it were to be believed, a healthcare librarian in the US had cited nonsense from the Dreamaticus web site in response to an urgent medical enquiry. The medics acted on this “information”, and – unsurprisingly – the patient died.

In response the distraught family launched a law suit against the hospital. Eventually the hospital’s lawyers traced the Dreamaticus web site and its owner back to Scotland. It was incredibly distressing to see my full name, my occupation, and the name of my employer in print. The paper had even printed my full apology to the hospital and the family of the bereaved.

I commented to TPR and our companion that I had been let down by journalists in the past, but never before on such a scale.

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Lulu in London (Belle)

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Dreamaticus

The coach pulled up outside the Houses of Parliament and I felt my excitement levels rise. Determined to be the first to disembark, I pushed the other passengers out of the way. I could hear Lulu belting out her number and I wasn’t going to miss out on a second of this ‘Shout about the Olympics’ free concert.

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Green teddy bears seek release from Edinburgh airport (Rousse)

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Dreamaticus

For a reason that I could not understand AA and IR had clubbed together to buy me a celebratory present that comprised a collection of green cuddly toys and some rather bizarre clothing, much of it the same colour. Rather than hand all this over to me in person, they left it in a locker at the far side of security at Edinburgh airport. The only way for me to collect my haul would be item by item each time I took a flight. This would take months due to the strict hand baggage rules enforced by the airlines. If only the pair of them had chosen a locker beside the check-in desks instead.

On the first day that I set off to visit my locker I ran into a newly-retired colleague. My delight turned to shame as she berated me for failing to treat annual leave cards as confidential documents. We never had a cross word when we worked together and now I wondered if she had secretly hated me for the past ten years? I wandered off, my head hanging in shame.

However, I soon cheered up when I spotted GG by the check-in desks all dressed up and looking super-glamorous. She was meeting the rest of her family for a photo shoot. This sounded so much more interesting than how I would be spending the next hour or so: making a decision as to which lucky green teddy would be released from the locker as my companion on the 09:15 flight to Heathrow.

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Bonding with Radcliffe and Maconie over the Farmer’s Boys and the BBC (Rousse)

Posted on April 1, 2012 by Dreamaticus

Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie enjoyed the Fringe so much that they decided to stay on in Edinburgh, at least until Christmas.

By now I was their best friend and had persuaded them to help run my seminars. The students were delighted. The pair of them were so amenable that Stuart would sometimes agree to perform his furniture party trick in class. This involved taking a running jump from behind the red sofa then landing fully stretched out across the back rest.

We all got on so well together because we had much in common, especially when it came to music and radio work. My friendship with Stuart was sealed when he spotted the Farmer’s Boys badge (circa 1982) pinned to my rucksack. He was less interested in my Edinburgh Bright Club badge, but when I mentioned my contributions to BBC Radio 4 comedy, both he Mark were all ears again.

See Stuart Maconie elsewhere on Dreamaticus in Mark Radcliffe missing, Stuart Maconie scared (Rousse); Stuart Maconie radio chef (Rousse)

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Smart – but stupid (Belle)

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Dreamaticus

I was in Edinburgh studying for two degrees simultaneously – law and medicine.

Despite my obvious book-smarts I could never remember the way back to my student digs. I had taken to following my flatmates from a discreet distance, hoping they would be going straight home, and not stopping at the pub first.

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International cellist fails to avert breakfast party disaster (Rousse)

Posted on March 31, 2012 by Dreamaticus

The star attraction at our breakfast party was international cellist US. I was so proud to have successfully tempted her over from Denmark to Hexham to spend the morning at my long-dead grandmother’s house. Other guests included JC and VJ (both looking svelte in jeans and slinky black tops), JC’s husband G, and a Scandinavian gatecrasher.

The party itself was not a success. Before long everyone did their best to misbehave. US turned shy and refused to speak to the Scandinavian; the Scandinavian didn’t take the hint, kept on talking and moved so close to US that she was almost sitting on her knee; and GC refused to put raspberry jam on his toast on the grounds that it contained “bits”.

Worst of all, two guests were incredulous that I would object to their smoking indoors at breakfast time. They argued that they had every right to do so: hadn’t my granny smoked 20 a day in this very house for two decades? I threw the pair of them out on to Broadway Gardens. They were no longer welcome at our table.

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A happy job move (Rousse)

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Dreamaticus

I took up my new post so quickly that there was no time to organise a leaving do in Scotland. I didn’t even have time to arrange any temporary accommodation, so we lived out of our car for our first few days south of the border.

I didn’t care. I loved it here, as did TPR, who spent his first night on campus dancing with the same students with whom I had held assignment tutorials earlier in the day. We would settle in properly in no time. I already knew most of my new colleagues, and was familiar with the layout of the department and its procedures from previous visits. I couldn’t wait to catch up with AM when she returned from her trip to Paris.

All I needed to do now was to make sense of some of the University’s quaint financial procedures. For example, the University took care of all your spending on meals. You recorded an estimate of the cost of your projected food consumption in an old-fashioned ledger, then each month this figure would be deducted from your salary. If it turned out that your estimates were inaccurate, a simple readjustment could be made.

I could not imagine how I would ever be unhappy here.

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