Tag Archives: America

Tripadvisor hotels to avoid (Rousse)

Posted on July 18, 2015 by Dreamaticus

Never again will I stay in the following hotels: The luxury American hotel that plonks you in room 22 right next to the bar on a Saturday night The Hebridean guest house that houses a black and white cat in … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged allergic, allergy, America, annual leave, bar, bathroom, Caribbean, cat, cats, changeover, en suite, gift, guest, Hebrides, hotel, hotels, house, pool, present, resort, Saturday, student, students, sunbathe, TripAdvisor | Leave a comment

Harry Potter tattoos: the only clue to “Pedro’s” past (Rousse)

Posted on November 19, 2013 by Dreamaticus

I lost TPR during the final stage of the long journey to the US aboard an ocean liner. Occasionally I would spot him in the distance across deck, usually driving one of the small open cars used for deliveries by … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged America, authenticity, baby, body art, boot, car, cars, child, clue, companion, complexion, confront, deck, deliveries, delivery, disguise, driver, Edinburgh, family, George Heriot's School, Harry Potter, hide, Hogwarts, illegal, image, immigrant, JK Rowling, journey, labour, Latin, liner, lose, lost, Mexican, moustache, muscle, ocean, past, Pedro, questions, Scotland, seat, ship, silver, skinny, staff, tan, tattoo, tattoos, trap, US | Leave a comment

Sir Paul McCartney sings for information scientists (Rousse)

Posted on July 19, 2013 by Dreamaticus

BC organised an evening reception for all the summer information science interns based in the US. I was delighted to be invited: I’d been getting very lonely living in a shed in my hosts’ garden. I was beginning to feel … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged America, boast, community, dog, entertainer, garden, hosts, information science, information scientist, information scientists, interns, invitation, kennel, members, minders, network, Paul McCartney, power, reception, serenade, shed, sing, Sir Paul McCartney, sister, summer, US | Leave a comment

Rousse’s unintended drug overdose

Posted on November 24, 2012 by Dreamaticus

I was struggling to make sense of the huge American hotel and how to navigate my way up and down the building by escalator and lift. It was very obvious that I was a stranger here, so I was an … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged America, drug, drugs, escalator, gel, girl, hotel, lift, mouth, overdose, recreational, rescue, stranger, tablets, target, teenager, US, wall | Leave a comment

To America by jet-boat (Rousse)

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Dreamaticus

The new way to travel to the US was by jet-boat. Developments in shipping technology meant that it was just as fast to cross the Atlantic by sea as by air. What is more, in the latter part of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged air, America, Atlantic, boat, deck, jet, passenger, passengers, sea, ship, sunbathe, US | Leave a comment

Dangerous driving in the United States (Rousse)

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Dreamaticus

After a quiet Christmas Day, TPR and I set off to visit KR. It was a long time since we had driven in the US, and the first time that we had taken our own right-hand drive vehicle on the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged alleyway, alleyways, America, American, beggar, beggars, bend, bends, car, Christmas, Christmas Day, drive, driving, freeway, freeways, hand-out, hand-outs, medieval, narrow, passenger, right-hand drive, town, TPR, traffic, underpass, United States, US | Leave a comment

Rousse’s killer presentation

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Dreamaticus

CO gave me a last friendly pat on the back for good luck as we negotiated the final set of stairs to the lecture hall. This was it then. It was finally time for me to deliver the closing keynote … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged America, anecdotes, asides, audience, back, career, crowd, dead, disaster, failure, good, hall, jokes, killer, lecture, luck, microphone, pat, performance, presentation, rehearsals, sla, stage, stairs, TPR, US | Leave a comment

A college education and life as a call girl (Belle)

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Dreamaticus

In a large hall in an American high school I was amused to see three students wearing Aston Villa shirts watching Match of the Day on a big screen. As I looked closer, I realised that the students had arranged … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged America, Arsenal, Aston Villa, Birmingham, Charlton Athletic, football, high school, Match of the Day, necklace, prostitute, vending machine, wig | Leave a comment

Rousse averts Las Vegas crime-spree

Posted on December 17, 2011 by Dreamaticus

Normally I hated huge Las Vegas hotels, but this one was an exception. The staff did everything to make you feel at home, right down to changing the name-plates on the bedroom doors each day so that guests believed that … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged America, ancestors, ancestry, bedroom, bedrooms, bucket, buckets, CCTV, cellar, cinema, coat, dinner, door, doors, escalator, gamble, gambling, grinder, guard, guest, guests, hotel, hotels, Las Vegas, library, magazine, magazines, Nevada, newspaper, newspapers, oak, pepper, pocket, popcorn, restaurant, restaurants, room, rooms, salt, Scotland, Scottish, Scrabble, security, table, tables, tile, United States, USA, wall | Leave a comment

Bad behaviour and an F1 fireball kill conversation (Rousse)

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Dreamaticus

The conference launch event was a Victorian-Edwardian music hall concert in the style of BBC’s Good old days show. I thought this a bit OTT for a librarians’ conference, but this was the US, and it did make a change … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged alumni, alumnus, America, BBC, Berkeley, Birmingham University, California, car, colleagues, conference, conversation, dead, dinner, Edwardian, F1, fire engine, fire engines, flame, flames, flirt, flirting, formula 1, formula one, friend, gate-crash, gatecrash, Good old days, hall, kill, librarian, librarians, Manor, Manor House, Mountain View, music, music hall, news, Oxford, Oxford University, PhD, reunion, San Francisco, school, siren, sirens, Stanford, table, TPR, University of Birmingham, University of Oxford, US, Victorian | Leave a comment