Household marvels and a late puppeteer (Rousse)

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Dreamaticus

P and S had now settled into their new house and we were so honoured to have been invited over for lunch. I marvelled at the waterfall and lagoon that had been landscaped into their back garden. In the kitchen I offered to help with the food preparations, impressed at all the mod cons, and the beautiful bespoke blue porcelain (that would be replaced as “unfashionable” the year after next). I felt guilty that we had failed to invite P and S to our humble cellar for such a long time. As things turned out, I was also asked to stay the night, so I made myself useful in concocting a snack of fried onions, cottage cheese and tomatoes in a savoury biscuit shell. For some reason SC (now SL) was there too, but she wasn’t much use because she kept stepping outside for cigarette breaks.

TPR and I were waiting for KFS. We were sure that he had said 17:00, but it was almost 18:00 by the time that he arrived. He eventually turned up, but it was too late for me: I had to rush back to London.

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A party and a police officer (Belle)

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Dreamaticus

It had been a big night out. At some point I had been wearing night vision goggles at a party where everyone was having a wild time except me. There was a steamy sauna and lots of loud music. The goggles helped me see more of the fun I wasn’t having. Two former female colleagues were propping each other up in the stairwell.

I tried to walk home down a crescent shaped City street that was criss-crossed with ladders hundreds of feet high. I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to work in such dangerous conditions. Every man in a hard hat was climbing a wobbly ladder and there were drunk people making their ways home. Couldn’t they easily knock the ladders over? As it was, I was sober and had to crawl through some small spaces.

For the next part of my commute home I was standing up in an open top bus like an FA Cup winning team.

Then a policeman walked me home and offered to recreate the moment when my friend, SG, blew a big bumble bee out of the overflow pipe coming out of her kitchen. I didn’t think SG would be happy to be woken up in the middle of the night and told the policeman she had been out enjoying herself and should be left alone.

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Rousse to star on reality TV

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Dreamaticus

There was a straightforward reason why I slipped through customs unnoticed and TPR was held back: I had lied about our trip, whereas he had admitted to the farm visit. Now I had to intervene to persuade the airport official to admit my husband back into the country. This proved much easier than anticipated: I simply lied again. So long as they knew nothing of our afternoon with the cows in the milking parlour, we would be fine. I was so relieved when the official gladly let TPR through the barrier. I was less than pleased, however, on hearing from this stranger that my Christmas present was to be an appearance on a reality television show. Now I was burdened with an acting role on Christmas Day. How could I feign both surprise and delight at the “news” that our flat would be the star of a Who do you think you are style show about buildings?

Changing nappies was much harder than I remembered, especially since this particular baby had a habit of disappearing into thin air. I needed to find her mother. I barged into the bathroom as my ex-colleague SAR emerged from the shower. I instantly forgot about the baby, distracted by the biggest personal collection of make-up and toiletries that I had ever seen in a domestic environment.

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Belle’s bare bottom beauties

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Dreamaticus

I don’t know how anyone had talked me into taking a four line speech in the company pantomime but I had handled the situation in an adult way by ignoring it and hoping I would get run over before the performance date. So now here I was, on the afternoon of the show, trying to learn lines in a half-hearted way but still hoping some disaster would befall me. When I walked past a group of school girls one of them managed to put a spell on my pumps and I stopped dead in my tracks. Twice. I said “I am going to punch you in the face” but even I didn’t believe myself. For some reason I had a New Zealand accent.

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I watched live footage of 100 members of the public chosen to stand in a marbled hall and greet Prince William and Kate. I scanned the group of women with hats. Scattered throughout the group were about ten blonde beauties who had made ‘wedding dresses’ out of toilet roll. Most of them were showing bare bottoms and a lot of flesh. “That’s why they’re there and I’m stuck watching in the ugly cupboard”, I thought bitterly.

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Let me leave Loughborough (Rousse)

Posted on December 8, 2010 by Dreamaticus

We were gathered around a table at Loughborough University to discuss the establishment of a new research centre for visiting library and information science researchers, and this was getting embarrassing. For the third time I asked the chair of the committee to repeat his question, which he did, and I still couldn’t make sense of anything that he said. Was he garbling his words, or perhaps I was going deaf? None of the others looked as puzzled as me, yet nor did anyone else attempt to answer the question. This was going to be a long, confused, committee meeting.

In the break I popped outside and was surprised to emerge into heat and beautiful countryside: the East Midlands in mid-winter reminded me of rural West Sussex at the height of summer.

Back in the committee room again, the “meeting” had taken on the appearance of a confused workshop where multiple conversations along the table debated flipchart lists. I secretly checked my British Airways boarding card, wondering whether I could negotiate with those flying to Newcastle to leave early at 15:50.

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Karaoke? Shoot me now please (Belle)

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Dreamaticus

The rest of the firm was preparing for the big night’s entertainment – an evening of dinner, drinking and karaoke in the barn. No-one asked me if I was looking forward to it. Surely they must all know by now that this type of thing is worse than hell to me. In the attic a man held me at gunpoint but a colleague snuck up and disarmed him. Then they walked away together, joking.

When I heard that AL, a former director of the firm, was attending the party and had ‘prepared a Doctor Who medley’, I decided to run away.

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Removal, Radley handbags, monster Range Rovers and another rescue for Rousse

Posted on December 7, 2010 by Dreamaticus

The Institute was moving into less costly premises. As we crowded round the door of the new office ES snapped at the suggestion that the staff clock-watched at work: “Eight days a week is the norm here!” he declared. The new office was a small public library. Unfortunately it soon became obvious that there was insufficient space for everyone to have their own desk. Since I was not a permanent member of staff, my place was allocated last. I raised the issue of occupational health when it was explained to me that I was expected to work perched at the end of a book shelf. In response, the grey-bearded boss handed over a battered copy of Navigating business information sources (Burke & Hall, 1998) and instructed me to get on with my duties.

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The new arrangement for running club would waste the entire day. The plan was first to meet at RA’s flat mid-morning, hang around there until midday with TPR and LM, run for about an hour, and then go out for lunch together at about 13:30. I became so fed up with waiting that I headed straight to the pub. I saved a table for the others by ordering a bowl of Strawberry Crisp Oat Clusters, and eating them very slowly.

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Life was dangerous in 2015. The tall men in charge were in total control, supported by an army of small, nippy blonde women carrying tan Radley handbags (which SC would like). Privacy was long dead now that there was 24-hour surveillance. We were doomed from the moment that we were snatched from a London street and shoved into one of the massive metallic Range Rover transporters. I lost count of how often we were kicked and punched. The only enjoyable moment came when we drove into the chasm. I loved the sensation of floating downwards. Poor TPR, however, hurt himself when he fell and lost a “stave” from his front teeth.

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The world around me diminished to a feint photocopy in slow motion and now I knew the truth: I’d finally been found out and they were coming to get me.

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Belle loses out to a toddler and calls in sick

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Dreamaticus

I was sitting opposite my new, breakdancer boyfriend at a diner when he suddenly mentioned he had a wife and baby. The baby, now nearly two years old, was already being followed on Flickr and Facebook by people all around the world and was popular for her good looks, trendy outfits and exotic locations. Once again, I realised I was playing a minor role in this story.

In a big round wooden room, not unlike Eltham Palace, I was finding pictures to sell in a big garage sale and was then commissioned by an industry illuminary to write a book. As the snow came down, I realised I should be on my way to the office and pretended to be at the doctor’s.

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Tweeting, blogging and all that comes between (Rousse)

Posted on December 5, 2010 by Dreamaticus

I burst with pride on two counts: first that Damon Albarn had chosen my pal SJ as the lead singer in his new virtual band; and second that I had worked this out all my own when “Rod Patterson” started following me on Twitter. The avatar was so realistic as a rock star, with long grey hair and a tall hat. Even so, from all the other clues I could still tell that SJ was the voice behind the cartoon

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How extraordinary that following redundancy both KT and VJ took part-time work sorting out the linen and admin at the same launderette!

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The bed and breakfast was filthy, and the landlady barely acknowledged us as her guests. She preferred to stare at daytime television from a blackened sofa shoved against the wall of her darkened sitting room. We were really glad that we would be moving out soon. We just needed to arrange where stay in the short period between leaving this dump and taking possession of our new flat. I knew that Pollock Halls at the University of Edinburgh did short-term lets for couples, so we made an enquiry. My colleague PC and his German wife were in the same position as us, so we visited together. As soon as we established that we were two married couples (they’d run out of rooms for two girls sharing), and that our request for accommodation did not clash with a huge booking for a 30th birthday party taking place the next day, we were in business.

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I promised the teacher to retake A level English in an attempt to improve my 1981 grade. However, on close examination we discovered that all the texts on the syllabus had changed, and the only one with which I had any familiarity was Hamlet. I was bound to fail, so I decided not to turn up for the exam. TPR then pointed out that if I was a no-show, I’d surely get a U by default. If I actually sat the paper and did terribly, I might also get a U. However, given A level grade inflation over the past 30 years, it was more likely that I would get an A*. I would give it a go, after all.

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The massive computer screen and mouse at the street corner were ideal for updating the Dreamaticus blog. With time, however, as the crowds round me started to form into a queue I realised that I needed to log off and find my friends quickly for the big show. The only problem was that the computer screen then froze and it was impossible to exit WordPress safely. I was paralysed. I really wanted to join my pals, but there was no way that I would expose the oeuvre of Rousse and Belle to the risk of hacking.

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Trop Belle pour moi

Posted on December 5, 2010 by Dreamaticus

My affair with Don Draper was going from strength to strength and I decided to introduce him to the Turkish restaurant at the back of my house. We accessed it through tunnels and caves and eventually came out into a courtyard strung with fairy lights. I knew it wasn’t as sophisticated as his usual haunts and once again I wondered why he was wasting his time on me.

The peace of the picturesque cove was only slightly marred by the airplanes using the adjacent runway. I didn’t even know that Arizona had a coastline before I got here. When I went into a strange bathroom, layers of wet clothes were hanging over the bath and I noticed, and coveted, a rust-coloured 1930s gown despite knowing I was never going to fit into anything that small. I also realised that I had forgotten to bring my friend’s fat boyfriend’s Christmas present. The Daily Mail Annual, a present suited to him in every way.

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