Happy International Women's Day

I receive an email addressed to me and my fellow coordinator. It's from someone I barely know in a different department and it begins "Hello Ladies". I think about it for a while. Am I just being a grumpy old git? Am I taking this feminism nonsense too far? Probably, but in any case I reply and ask her not to address me as "Lady". 

The curious incident of the rodent in the nighttime

I am woken up at 3.00 am by Timorous Beast pulling the duvet off me. I grip it tightly and refuse to yield. 


He tuts and pushes up against me, "You've nicked the whole duvet."


"No I haven't."


"Bloody have. Fucking freezing." He harrumphs off to his own side of the bed, disgusted with my greed and selfishness. Some shuffling around follows and then "Oh, here it is," as he snuggles under the duvet that was at his side all along. 


A couple of nights later, I am wrenched from a deep slumber at 4.00 am by Timorous Beast yelling "Wait a minute! Stop, will you?"


"What? What is it this time?"


He begins prodding my pillow and cries out, in an anguished tone, "They've gone down the back of the bed!"


"What's gone down the back of the bed?"


He begins to reply, but there is a telling pause. He realises something's not quite right. 


"Well?"


When the answer comes, it is rather sheepish. "The guinea pigs." 

Hairy weekend

I spend the weekend dog-sitting in the country. My plan is to get loads of PhD work done. The reality is that as soon as I sit down at the computer, the dog rests is flubbery great chops on the keyboard. A fluffball cat, who doesn't even live here but sneaked in when I was letting the dog into the garden, rubs its arse in my face. On Saturday afternoon I nod off on the sofa only to wake later surprised by the sudden snort of my own snore. The fluffball is lying on my chest and Flubber Chops is crushing my arm.

Negotiation skills

Timorous Beast does not understand the concept of negotiating.

He tries to persuade me to part with 75 quid in exchange for a ticket to see Billy Connolly, but I'm reluctant. It's not just that 75 quid is a lot of money for a night out that doesn't involve being fed or housed. It's more the principle of the thing. The tickets only cost between 30 and 40 quid originally. Anything on top of that is just profiteering by greedy fuckers on ebay, and I don't want to encourage them.

Sensing my reluctance, he changes tack. "You could buy one for me for my birthday". 

Finders keepers

To the person who lost fifteen quid on campus last week, I found it but decided that there was no point in handing it in to the police or lost and found, so I gave it to Oldies Club. Your loss was not in vain.

The best 11 quid I ever spent

I recently bought a cheap little clock radio to help me get to sleep or, failing that, while away the wee small sleepless hours without feeling suicidal. It's working. 


Sometimes I even fight sleep so I can enjoy that most enchanting time of the night: the hour after the midnight news. I lie there listening to a book at bedtime, then that lovely sailing by, and then the shipping forecast. And then my little life is rounded with sleep and I don't want to kill myself. What could be better? 

Tosser

My neighbour is not only a noisy twat who looks like Rick Astley; he's also a tosser. When he eats a piece of fruit (which is often if the state of the undergrowth is anything to go by), rather than putting the peel in the bin like any normal human being, he likes to catapult it from his third floor window into the garden. 


I complained about him doing this, but he was undeterred and only resolved to improve his aim. He now throws a bit further and usually gets his missiles over the fence to the land belonging to Network Rail and, thus, out of sight. But the occasional tangerine peel or banana skin ends up dangling in the branches, giving the game away.


Today, as I stood at the window watching a tiny wren, a banana skin sailed in a graceful arc above me, slapped into a tree trunk and fell to the ground. In the communal garden. 


Because he is a noisy twat who looks like Rick Astley, I then heard him opening and shutting his front door and running down the stairs. Thump thump thump. A moment later, he strolled casually into the garden and tossed the offending banana skin over the fence before ascending once more to his flat in the manner of a large elephant.


Why would anyone prefer to throw fruit from the window, then have to run up and down three flights of stairs to move it rather than just putting it in the bin in his flat in the first place? Tosser.