Through the bedroom window – with dead pigeons (Rousse)

Posted on January 1, 2021 by Dreamaticus

I was already distraught when I opened the bedroom shutters to find three live pigeons trapped between the wood and the window.

I was beyond consolation when I saw through the glass that the back garden was completely overgrown.

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Adrian Chiles still sensitive over divorce from Jane Garvey (Rousse)

Posted on January 1, 2021 by Dreamaticus

When interviewing Adrian Chiles, I thought it only polite to admit that I used to know his ex-wife Jane Garvey. His face crumpled at the mention of her name.

Who would have guessed that the jolly television presenter would still be carrying regret over his decade-old divorce?

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A useless passport (Rousse)

Posted on December 29, 2020 by Dreamaticus

I opened the cover of my passport to find that all the significant pages had been ripped out. I wouldn’t be going anywhere soon – not even to Europe.

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From swimming with killer whales to selling Christmas tat on eBay (Rousse)

Posted on December 29, 2020 by Dreamaticus

My sister S was very busy.

First she changed into her red bathing costume and jumped into the sea for a swim. I was grateful that the school of killer whales did not pay her any attention.

Next she was selling shoddy wooden Christmas ornaments on eBay from her bedroom in our childhood home.

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Kiell Smith-Bynoe is the star of Ghosts (Rousse)

Posted on December 21, 2020 by Dreamaticus

When I turned round I found Kiell Smith-Bynoe standing behind me.

‘Oh, hello’, I said, “I recognise you as an actor from Ghosts‘.

‘Not quite’, he corrected me, ‘I think that you mean the star of Ghosts.’

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Suicidal coach survival (Rousse)

Posted on December 19, 2020 by Dreamaticus

TPR and I were disappointed that two other passengers had bagged the best seats next to the coach driver. Sulkily, we sat down in the second row behind them.

Twenty minutes later the driver veered off the road, rumbled the vehicle across a field of sheep, and smashed head-first into a wall. We were left unscathed by his suicide. The passengers next to him were not.

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Prime Minister Boris Johnson lies about fish (Rousse)

Posted on December 16, 2020 by Dreamaticus

Boris Johnston stuck his hand into the drawer of random cutlery and pulled out a flat four inch fish-shaped piece of steel.

‘Excellent, a Tudor fish knife!’ he declared.

He was, of course, wrong. The metal might  have been fashioned into the form of a fish, but the work had been almost certainly done by a machine in twenty-first century China. Added to this, the fish was only decorative, with no practical function.

This was just another of the Prime Minister’s lies.

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A Hebridean Princess (Rousse)

Posted on December 13, 2020 by Dreamaticus

A famous dramatist was staying at the guest house on the Isle of Lewis and – it was rumoured – he was about to cast the lead role for his latest play: a princess with long golden hair.

Around my neck I strung the pearl necklace that I retrieved from the back of the sofa, then a ran a comb through my tresses, and waited for the call.

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iPhone switch scam (Rousse)

Posted on December 12, 2020 by Dreamaticus

Someone had switched my iPhone 11 for a 4. It worked fine, with all my contacts and stored messages and photographs still intact – but it wasn’t my phone.

Later TPR managed to work out the identity of the culprit who had made the exchange. It was a woman called Jeannette. I only knew one person with this name and had seen her recently. There was no question that she was to blame.

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What not to present in a job application (Rousse)

Posted on December 12, 2020 by Dreamaticus

SL showed me her notes for the job application form.

‘What’s the best way of present this information?’ she asked, showing me a sheet of paper headed ‘Dates’ with long list of men’s names underneath.

I advised SL that her prior work for an escort agency was probably not the kind of experience sought by the company in the advertised role. In fact, I hoped that she could keep this bizarre chapter of her life secret – forever.

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