Superior smoked salmon (Rousse)

Posted on October 23, 2023 by Dreamaticus

The melt-in-the-mouth smoked salmon was of the best quality.

What else would you expect from top caterer, the British Library?

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Cat food and shameful northern roots (Rousse)

Posted on October 22, 2023 by Dreamaticus

‘Cat food! You need to do more investigations into cat food!’ screeched the scruffy man as the smart black Citizens Advice limo drove past him.

‘And bitcoin too’, muttered my friend JT as she sat down next to me. She looked so glamorous these days with her glossy dark bob. The shedding of a couple of stone also contributed much to her refined new look.

Just as we began our catch-up over coffee, another elegant woman walked over to our table. It soon became obvious that she was also a friend of JT so I introduced myself, and began to explain that JT were childhood friends who grew up together Stockton-on-Tees.

JT interrupted me with a sharp nudge. I quickly understood that she did not want her shameful up-bringing in the deprived North East of the 1970s to become common knowledge amongst her posh new southern friends.

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An AGM with atheists (Rousse)

Posted on October 21, 2023 by Dreamaticus

BMR arranged the display in the corridor, then set up the kitchen for the Scottish Annual General Meeting. I greeted the great and good of the association with enthusiasm as I welcomed them at the front door.

I also dealt with guests sleeping in the study. These included my former student, now Minister, PG. He was traumatised by the discovery that I consorted with atheists.

Others were keen to meet the godless. Most desperate was the librarian from the National Library of Scotland, hoping for an introduction to JM. While she was telling me of her heart’s desire, a man approached us.

He was selling professional photographs of my garden: would I like to buy some? The only problem was that he was mistaken. His photos were of the garden next door, and not mine.

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A diet that really works (Rousse)

Posted on October 18, 2023 by Dreamaticus

My sister J had joked that she had been eating cardboard in an attempt to lose weight. Now that I saw her again in the flesh, she admitted that her new slim form was thanks to a recipe for offal made in a special French food processor.

‘You just whiz up the liver and kidneys in the machine, which also cooks the meat. Then you have it all for breakfast. It’s so filling that you don’t need to eat again for the rest of the day’.

I wasn’t that desperate to drop a few pounds.

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Students, school skirts, and Swindon (Rousse)

Posted on October 17, 2023 by Dreamaticus

It might appear cruel, but I insisted that the students sit their exams at desks lined up outside on the main road in the pouring rain.

If they got soaked, I had a supply of grey school skirts in a railway carriage accessible when my train reached Swindon.

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Delayed Christmas party action (Rousse)

Posted on October 15, 2023 by Dreamaticus

Much later than usual, in January we finally hosted our annual Christmas party.

  • EH came under sufferance.
  • JK arrived speaking with her childhood Lancashire accent. Not a trace of the west of Scotland could be heard in her ‘new’ voice.
  • A stranger hunted through our fridge for ingredients to make a meal. I intervened when she reached for the spinach. ‘That’s for our dinner next week’, I explained as I scolded her.
  • ETS tutted at the return of fallen spinach leaves to the fridge as I tucked them back into their cellophane wrapper.
  • PMF ‘accidentally’ let out the secret that CA was pregnant. Instead of congratulating the pair of them, all I could think was ‘Whatever will her new employer say? She’s only been working there for a couple of weeks’.
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Thursday Next movie adaptation in trouble (Rousse)

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Dreamaticus

There were two RJHs in the lift: one, a miniature, was a little shorter than me; the other a six-footer (at least). Both were built to scale of their normal counterpart. The fourth person in the lift was a stranger. Like us, he was also working on the movie.

Our main task was to find our location for the next day. We drove up and down all the terraced streets hunting for a house with our code name. On every gate and street-facing windows there were poster-sized labels, but none matched the code that had been assigned to us.

Perhaps I was destined never to star as Thursday Next in the movie adaptations of Jasper Fforde’s fabulous book series?

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Pink, fish-shaped swimming googles mistaken for lawyer (Rousse)

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Dreamaticus

On day two of the work weekend away, I hoped to have an opportunity to wash my hiar. Instead I was paired up with two male colleagues, told that I would be sharing a bedroom with them later (they would take the double bed, thank goodness), and put on a tram to the East Lothian coast.

At our destination, we met our instructor and the rest of the team. Everyone was told to choose a pair of wellingtons from a big pile of green Hunters. I asked for exemption from this instruction since I was already wearing my black wellies. My request granted, I walked across the grass to join everyone now sporting appropriate waterproof footwear.

I saw KS in the crowd and blew her a friendly kiss. I immediately felt incredibly foolish when I saw that I had, in fact, directed my loving gesture to a pair of pink, fish-shaped swimming goggles. To make matters worse, an angry man took offence at my behaviour, and even more at my explanation.

‘KS is my lawyer’ he shouted ‘And it would be completely inappropriate to send kisses in her direction!’

Perhaps this was the reason that I had not heard from KS for so long. She had been studying for the bar.

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A two-track wedding and Belle the big mouth

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Dreamaticus

The wedding I attended was SO boring. In one room, every guest had been invited to ‘do a turn’ and I was cringing with second-hand embarrassment. Sneaking quietly out of the room, I discovered that a second ‘volume’ of the wedding was happening in the room next door at the same time. Here, guests were attempting to perform a Bollywood style musical number. How soon could I sneak out, I wondered.

Later someone asked me to help them find the bride’s DNA – she had disappeared from her own wedding several hours ago and a crime was suspected. I was too frightened to confess that I may have accidentally told the bride that this was the worst wedding ever and she had run away in tears.

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Sexual harassment and a sermon at Smithfield Market (Belle)

Posted on October 13, 2023 by Dreamaticus

I was walking home from work through the lawless streets of Clerkenwell, when a young man hid behind a lamppost and shouted suggestive insults at me. I was ‘rescued’ by an extremely posh young woman who insisted I report the incident to ‘Security’. On arriving at an office, the security guards studiously ignored me. Eventually, one of the guards stood up and and pulled on a white t-shirt with a golden cross on it. “You should attend my sermon”, he said.

Later I discovered that the posh young woman had been arrested by the security guards for abducting a baby. I worked hard to clear her name and the charges were eventually dropped.

I was given a new council house as a reward.

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