Cowboy computer salesmen fail the assignment (Rousse)

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Dreamaticus

I volunteered to assess some third year presentations. The students’ assignment was to sell me a computer system. These lads – all mature students well into their forties – exhibited some sense of humour, turning up to perform their pitch in cowboy costumes. They started well, but lost the plot when I asked what kind of discount I might expect on any purchase. It was obvious that they had not considered that haggling over price was a crucial part of the repertoire of any computer sales professional.

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Where to place your white goods (Rousse)

Posted on November 5, 2011 by Dreamaticus

At the time I thought it entirely sensible to site the new freezer in the spare bedroom. Later I was forced to admit that I was wrong.

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Where modern architecture and knowledge management meet (Rousse)

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Dreamaticus

I thought it was an act of genius to challenge the final year students to write an essay that tied Corble’s take on modern architecture with the practice of knowledge management. However, when I discovered the whole class fighting over the library’s one and only copy of Corble’s biography, I realised my mistake. It I didn’t intervene quickly, I would soon be marking 25 scripts on the planning, design and construction of buildings, none of which would feature a single mention of knowledge management.

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The book (section) thief (Rousse)

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Dreamaticus

I’d run into the students on the bus, and it was then that they invited me to meet them later on the beach. From there we could travel together to their graduation dinner. I hadn’t confirmed this arrangement, so it was with some relief that I spotted them walking up the shore from my vantage point on the sand dunes.

I joined the only two girls in the group as we headed towards Hanover Street. They were not happy with the choice of restaurant. They moaned that Tex-Mex was downmarket and too laddish. These complaints were mild, however, in comparison to their accusation about a fellow student. Martin was a book thief!

The girls explained that on an earlier trip to a library in Warwick Martin had added to his growing collection of stolen rare book sections. Here he cut several pages out of a unique manuscript in the hand of William Shakespeare and pocketed them before innocently returning the book to the shelf. Two thoughts ran through my mind: (1) this library really needed to improve its security measures; (2) Martin should never expect a job reference from me.

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Seaside Special shambles (Belle)

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Dreamaticus

My new boyfriend was appearing on the stage at a Seaside Special. His stand-up act was the least funny thing I had ever seen and I was glad I hadn’t told anyone I knew him. The auditorium was full of ‘celebs’ who spent most of the time chatting to each other and acting up for the cameras. What a shambles.

Meanwhile, the middle aged couple I was travelling with were delighted with the mystery tour. The show might not have been up to much but the wife told me that every time they travelled by bus her husband liked them to travel on the top deck where they could snog. They had been doing this for 30 years.

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David Bowie’s alter ego commutes with child (Belle)

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Dreamaticus

I sat on the tube train and began to shuffle the 7″ singles on my lap. They all looked pristine and I was delighted that they had clear plastic sleeves to keep them that way. Sitting next to me was a young child who stared open mouthed at the cover of David Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes. “I suppose he has no idea what these even are”, I said to child’s father sitting on the other side of the boy. Only when I looked up did I realise his father was dressed exactly like the ‘clown’ on the front of the record sleeve.

Later, fighter jets flew overhead and made the oil rig platform wobble.

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Gangsta rap death threat (Rousse)

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Dreamaticus

As the process of erosion slipped into fast forward, we witnessed the course of the river shift before our very eyes. The sandy banks were crumbling so quickly that all hands were called to fetch shovels and spades to dig a safe “walking channel” for pedestrians. We were helping to fix the problem when the urgent message reached us that TPR had insulted one of the biggest and most dangerous names in gangsta rap. With a price on his head, TPR would be forced into hiding.

We charged up Leith Walk so that we could take refuge in the offices of our lawyer friend RG. Perhaps RG could also defend TPR in court? The main challenge, however, was how to get into RG’s building. He only took on the slimmest of clients and if you couldn’t get through the tight front door, or squash into the paternoster lift to the second floor, you were not worthy of his professional attention.

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Poor high street sales strategy spotted on a quest for lip salve (Rousse)

Posted on October 30, 2011 by Dreamaticus

My shopping list was short. All I needed was a small tin of lip salve. I crossed the urban motorway that lay between the conference hotel and the mall and headed first for LIDL.

Although there were many customers inside the supermarket, they were held back from the aisles by a long rope. It was only 07:00, and they would not be released into the store until 09:30. The crowd of customers grew by the minute as news spread of the bargains on offer. An Australian women told me that she was very happy to wait another two and a half hours if it meant that she could secure the electric coal-effect fire for £9.99. I didn’t see any sense in keeping the customers waiting when they all seemed so keen to spend.

I gave up on LIDL and wandered off to John Lewis. One of the perfume counters would sell what I needed. However, before I reached them I was dragged away by a young man who asked my advice on shirts and tweed jackets. The big question was whether it was worth paying extra for a long length shirt. My response hung on whether or not he felt the cold. “There’s more to tuck in if you choose the longer length”, I explained.

The next distraction comprised a set of television screens. These played an endless loop of hypnotic Christmas shopping adverts to John Lewis customers. Anyone who started to watch them found it impossible to drag themselves away. “That won’t push up sales”, I thought – still without any lip salve.

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Campus security OTT (Rousse)

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Dreamaticus

KT was furious. “This will never work!” she complained. I tended to agree with her. The new security system on campus now required us to swipe our ID cards every time we emerged from a stairwell. How would the office staff ever get any work done if they were now responsible for supervising every exit and entry to the C corridor?

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Talents of a child “very advanced for his age” rub off on Rousse

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Dreamaticus

We’d barely known him an afternoon, yet bit by bit Gwen was already revealing himself to be one of the most fascinating people that we had ever met. When he invited us to his 40th birthday party that evening in a private room in the Virgin Active gym at the Omni Centre in Edinburgh we leapt at the chance to get to know him better.

Other guests at the meal included a lecturer in ornithology from Northumbria University. After I explained how we run our fourth year Knowledge Management classes she listed her own modules according to their official titles: “A module about song thrushes”, “A module about cuckoos”, “A module about puffins” etc. These all sounded rather mundane after my animated summary of all the fun and games of my own classes.

The most impressive guest, however, was Gwen’s three month old baby son whose vocabulary matched that of anyone I knew. In addition, this child prodigy could already walk. These early talents had been nurtured by another dinner guest – Gwen’s best friend, a child psychologist. I wasn’t sure that I would subject my own son to experimentation at such an early age and wondered how they had sorted out ethical consent for the study.

When the dishwasher broke after the meal I volunteered to help out in the kitchen. I stood next to AA who was slotting cutlery into a drawer. My job was to wash and dry the forks, then pass them to AA. This proved rather difficult now that I had acquired super powers myself. Uri Geller would have been so proud to see how I could now convert forks into spoons simply by dropping them in and out of the dirty dishwater.

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