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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Don’t mess with my baby/babies! (Rousse)

Posted on December 4, 2010 by Dreamaticus

So many turned up to the last Knowledge Management class of term that even the balcony was packed to the rafters. Until I spotted MN in the front row I was unsure as to whether or not we had the right audience. I was so happy with the turn-out. However, the guest lecturers were hopeless. They spoke on the wrong topic (marketing) and delivered irrelevant material related hospitality and tourism. One grey-haired idiot annoyed me especially with his arrogant attitude. He talked down to the students, and also seemed to think that he was speaking at QMC, running to a timetable that switched at 15 minutes past the hour.

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We found the baby on the corner of Northumberland and Nelson Streets. Encased in salami packaging, it was so tiny – about two inches in length – with transparent jelly pink limbs. We couldn’t tell whether it was a boy or girl. My Birmingham University flatmates HW (now HJ) and SC (now SL) poked it through the packaging. “Don’t do that!” I cried, as the baby squirmed in pain. HW had detached its right arm from its shoulder. I managed to ease it back again, muttering out loud “You are both mothers. You should know better”.

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The Doctor will NOT be with Belle shortly

Posted on December 4, 2010 by Dreamaticus

Where exactly was the flight to London? I was an anonymous person waiting in a departure lounge for the German ‘hostesses’ – or indeed anyone – to notice me. Just think how astonished they would be when my good friend, David Tennant, showed up to help with the luggage. That would buck them up. But then a TV screen flashed a headline. David Tennant had died of pleurisy. Now no-one would know that he had been my friend!

See David Tennant elsewhere on Dreamaticus in David Tennant returns as Dr Who (Rousse).

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Two young lads played an elaborate ‘army game’ at the old bus terminus in my home town. They were speaking Spanish into walkie talkies and I only recognised their call signs ‘Ola Uno’ and ‘Ola Dos’. A mean-spirited young girl was holding her baby sister by the scruff of the neck as if she were a puppy and I knew I had to intervene.

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I was driving a spectacular jaguar in a clumsy fashion in a carpark and I irritated the man behind. He was an actor who always played lotharios in British TV programmes. Didn’t he used to be in Howard’s Way?

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Rousse, a reptile and rubies

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Dreamaticus

My thought processes raced through four distinct stages: (1) Is that a snake curled around my ankle? (2) And that scrap of grey cloth, what’s that? (3) Ugh, dead mouse! (4) Yikes, the mouse is dead because it’s been attacked by the snake. “There’s a snake, a snake!” I screamed, thinking not only of myself, but also of puppy dog H, who was in the next room with JG. She could be killed if subjected to the poisonous venom of this vile, grey reptile. JG peered round the door frame unmoved. TPR, at the other end of the house, couldn’t care less.

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If this was Worcester then why was the shop was filled with tartan tat? The only wares that interested me were the fossils. As I picked up a couple from the top cabinet they fell in a crash to the floor. Fortunately one was a chunky ammonite and the other a quite large curled stone, so neither broke. Then I pointed out the gems to TPR. We had no idea that rubies came in multiple shades.

Out in the street I wanted to show LM the lovely bed and breakfast where we’d stayed all those years ago. It was in a red brick warehouse opposite the canal. We walked around the corner and I could tell that LM was not impressed. Everything looked so run down. We jumped in a cab to return to the others, following TPR in his own car: he was not speaking to me, hence the need for separate vehicles.

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Rousse’s relationship entanglements

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Dreamaticus

Although I was yet to admit it, our marriage had long been dead. My husband, kind to the end, was simply waiting for me to form another relationship before raising the question of how we could untangle ourselves from almost 30 years of attachment.

At last this time had come. I finally recognised that I was falling in love with someone we had both known for a while. This skinny young lad who had initially been of no interest to me whatsoever was an Adonis! Now I was eagerly planning a rendez-vous with him in the hall cupboard. He was just as keen.

Afterwards we emerged on to the street, where we found my husband and the girls playing hopscotch in the snow. The neighbours complained about the level of noise, especially since it was now 11pm at night, but the girls (evidently drunk) just laughed even louder.

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It was my job to help the big American to settle into his new role at the University. I came up with a plan that we take a peripatetic approach to project work. We would complete each stage in a different part of the building, sitting beside whoever else we found there.

It worked brilliantly, and soon our new colleague knew the names of many staff and students. Meanwhile I showed off my genius at mental arithmetic, accurately adding up flipchart figures faster than anyone else. I was a human spreadsheet!

The only problem with our public trek around the campus were regular interruptions by students who demanded help with writing references. It crossed my mind that I could have built an entire career around my talent for APA and Harvard style.

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Conference calamity (Rousse)

Posted on November 30, 2010 by Dreamaticus

I arrived so early at the conference that it was still dark, and BK and just one other person were the only other participants there. “So far, so good” I thought, but I was so wrong! From that point onwards all my pre-conference planning came to nothing: the session I chaired was up against the opening keynote and, as a result, was very poorly attended; delegates wandered into the lecture hall late with no consideration for the speaker; the boy in the green jumper mocked my chairing style; when I introduced the speaker I couldn’t pronounce her name and garbled her presentation title; and PowerPoint keeled over before a single slide was displayed.

Disgusted, the speaker sunk into a massive sulk, stepped down from the podium, and sat on the window ledge with her back to the paying delegates for the remainder of the session. I had to get help, so I left the room and rushed around the hotel looking for LC.

Everyone else was there, including the whole staff of the last conference I attended in October 2010 (e.g. JM, KA), LC’s predecessor CG, and my colleague VW, resting on a beanbag in a bar. I even ran into EMc, who invited me out to a trivia quiz in London the following evening. LC was nowhere to be found.

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Belle’s crush continues

Posted on November 30, 2010 by Dreamaticus

I watched a work colleague interview Cesar Millan about his use of social media (“who do you follow?”) while I sighed and puppy-dog eyed at him. I was sure we were meant to be together. Meanwhile, a sort of low rent X Factor competition was taking place where performers had to dash between two stages at opposite ends of the theatre, like football terraces. Backstage and unsure of my role, I gradually realised that I was ‘muse’ to the star of the show.

When builders dumped concrete blocks at the end of the street I was very stern with them and they tidied up everything, including the plastic geometry set sitting on the top of the wall.

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Rousse misses Clive Anderson – just

Posted on November 29, 2010 by Dreamaticus

It was an amazing coincidence to see Clive Anderson twice in one day. I’d spotted him at the London BBC Radio 4 studio in the morning, and now he was here in Edinburgh checking into reception. I hesitated over approaching him, and consequently missed my chance to renew our friendship from our three nights on the Isle of Lewis in summer 2004. The next time I saw him he was with a crowd of his British comedy cronies. Dawn French’s screeches of laughter were enough to dissuade me from pursuing Clive any further.

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I’d never driven an automatic car before and now I knew the reason why. It was impossible to tell which of the six settings was the one to choose, the visibility was terrible, and there was hardly any space in what was essentially a blue cardboard box built around a tiny motor. Driving along the motorway to the airport was a terrifying experience. My parents told me that my sister was forced to give up driving due to her medication. I was giving up driving simply because it was just far too difficult.

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Rousse reassesses book classification

Posted on November 28, 2010 by Dreamaticus

Fragments of:

  • Broadly approving the new scheme to help readers identify categories of book: in the future each one would be printed in the colour to represent its genre so, for example, a romance would have a red book jacket, the text would be in red, any pictures would be red monochrome, and a big red sticker would be placed on the spine of public library copies of the title; disputing that thrillers should take the colour black.
  • Following our dandy host out into the sunshine for a walk; running quickly through the field to avoid the terrorists plotting at the nearby nuclear power station; losing the others in the big house due to slow progress climbing the internal walls of the building; wondering what SL (formerly SC) was doing there; admiring the big staircase in the main entrance hall.
  • BP explaining that the submission had actually passed through the review process, in spite of the inappropriate written style; KB lingering in the background in the belief that it would be rude to interrupt two people who were “in love”; denying the accusation, yet admitting that I held affection for BP.
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