Queen drummer Roger Taylor plays the saw (Rousse)

Posted on November 3, 2022 by Dreamaticus

Queen drummer Roger Taylor played the saw as a publicity stunt for my sister J.

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A dream audit for house contents insurance renewal (Rousse)

Posted on November 3, 2022 by Dreamaticus

Since I couldn’t visit the property to check in person, I reckoned that the best way to audit my mother’s belongings for the house contents insurance renewal was to dream myself there. TPR agreed to ‘come’ with me, and we combined the trip with a meet-up with our university friends SPL and HJ, and SC.

It was much easier than envisaged to reach the house in our reveries, and soon I was wandering through the rooms, pen in hand, noting down the details of each item of furniture and artwork. I found familiar pieces such as a rocking chair that I once thought was enormous, and new (to me) objects such as a child’s high chair. Other surprises included a fridge full of yoghourt, a fox playing on the lawn (seen through the siting room window and which drove our own collie mad), and an encounter with S as she left quietly to take G to school.

We didn’t see anything of SEH because she was asleep in bed upstairs. SPL also went missing in action, preferring to spend her time inside our dreams with climate activists from the Isle of Man.

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Sister publications and primary health care (Rousse)

Posted on November 3, 2022 by Dreamaticus

My sister stood up and introduced her publication to the guests seated at round tables in the conference room. After she waved the folio-sized book in the air, I did the same with my own latest output. My sister was clearly very annoyed, and everyone else rather surprised. I sat down again, sheepishly.

Afterwards an authoritative man in a suit called Paul approached me. He asked why my sister’s talents had not been directed to improving the standard of primary health care in the UK.

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Angry driving and hypnotism (Rousse)

Posted on November 2, 2022 by Dreamaticus

TPR was in a filthy mood. He expressed his anger by driving the tiny car at top speeds through highland villages, egging on the motorists that were approaching from the opposite direction to race him through roadworks.

He eventually dumped SPL and me at a lecture hall in Manchester. Even though we sat amongst a bunch of lounging students at the back, the lecturer soon spotted SPL as an easy target for his party trick: hypnotising a member of his audience. She willingly went under. Meanwhile I cowered.

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Rubies for Rousse

Posted on October 31, 2022 by Dreamaticus

My sister SEH blew into our flat like a hurricane, dumping her belongings in the study and demanding food.

I noticed that she was wearing a lot of gold jewellery, including several ruby rings across both of her hands. Were these family pieces? Should they really be shared out amongst the three sisters?

After a minor tussle, she agreed that I could take a couple of rings. The two that she selected were damaged, but I was confident that they would be easy to repair.

Then she pulled a photograph album off the shelving above the futon and we laughed at old photographs of long-dead family members. Who knew that they were all so fat?

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Retrieving lost PowerPoint presentation slides (Rousse)

Posted on October 31, 2022 by Dreamaticus

Before bedtime, I placed my laptop and USB stick on the window-sill of LA’s spare bedroom.

The next day, all of us walked as a group to the bus stop en route to the campus of the University of Sheffield. Half way there, I realised that I had left both copies of my presentation slides back at the house.

Furious, LA instructed the rest of us to continue on our journey while he rushed back home to fetch my belongings.

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The surgeon comic (Rousse)

Posted on October 30, 2022 by Dreamaticus

SM nodded at the screen and – sure enough – the hilarious comic actor was him, albeit a younger and slightly fatter version.

None of us knew that while he was building his career as a surgeon in the 1990s, SM had a demanding second role in light entertainment.

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A mop and a scheming queen (Rousse)

Posted on October 29, 2022 by Dreamaticus

We made a purchase in the only shop in town that was open before 9:00am: a huge mop.

Then we popped over to the Palace to gather around the whiteboard with the rest of the royal family and listen to Queen Elizabeth II outline her latest scheme.

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Events at Northwick Hall (Rousse)

Posted on October 27, 2022 by Dreamaticus

We employed a team of caretakers to look after Northwick Hall, our rather grand country ‘cottage’. These employees doubled up as duty managers on event nights.

Amongst them was my old colleague ED and her husband M. While they did a reasonable job, I wasn’t too happy that ED carried her tiny, premature baby grandson between the pages of a ring binder one night as she welcomed guests to an evening show.

My favourite events were those with the undergraduates. I particularly enjoyed breakfast on the last day of term. All the boys dressed smartly in sports jackets and ties, keen to look their best when their parents drove to Northwick to collect them and take them home for the holidays.

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A Mexican double life (Rousse)

Posted on October 26, 2022 by Dreamaticus

I spotted the black notebook lying in a side street of run-down terraced houses. Curious as to their contents, I picked it up from the gutter to take a look. There on the first page my childhood home address stood out amongst mundane lists and notes about building supplies.

I flicked through the other pages and then saw my own name scribbled in the margins. Most curious of all was a raised section of a page, about the size of a postage stamp. Touching it activated a sound file – of my own voice, explaining that I moved to Mexico when I was 18 and that my academic career was a complete illusion.

This was all terribly shocking – so much so that I felt that I could only share the story of my discovery with one person. BJ was my confidante. After this revelation, it was my intention to never mention it again, and do my best to forget about all it.

However, the next time that I was on campus and sitting next to FR, it struck me that her handwriting was very similar to that in the notebook. When I hinted that I had been terribly upset on finding a multimedia notebook in the street, she confessed that this was all of her making. She thought that I would be delighted with her mysterious and imaginative hand-made retirement present.

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