The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 2031 by Angharad Copyright © 2013 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

A new day dawned–allegedly–and Messrs Humphrys and Evans were filling my auditory senses with facts and figures from the Commons’ Accounts Committee. At times I wonder if I’m actually living in Bongo-bongo land, the things that these committees come up with. They showed Amazon to be a bunch of tax avoiders, looks like Google aren’t much better, saying everything is based in Ireland and thus not subject to UK tax laws–except they sell far more in the UK than in bloody Ireland. No wonder there’s more millionaires in London than any other city on the earth–they all probably pay their taxes in Ireland–you know, the Celtic Tiger across the sea that went tits up when someone examined the books–oh and it rains there even more than over here.

If I sound anti-Irish, I’m not–well not really. Simon has gone on ad nauseum about their banking habits–all of them bad, and I was bullied by an Irish girl when I was at Sussex.

It’s funny, I haven’t thought about her for ages, pity I couldn’t have sustained the amnesia. Her name was Kelly, Kelly O’Malley I think. She was small with very dark hair and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. She was absolutely beautiful, but like some beautiful objects all her niceness was on show, inside she had a heart of pure stone and a malicious streak a mile wide. She could be cruel for the sake of it and it explained why some of her countrymen are still fighting wars through terrorist activities that no one else wants. But it only takes a minority to do nasty things and everyone becomes involved, willingly or otherwise.

Before I decided to try cycling as a source of exercise and fitness–including trying to keep my waistline–I thought about doing aerobics. Kelly was the secretary for the Aerobic Exercise club. I saw her in the refectory one day and went up to her. The conversation went something like this.

“Are you Kelly from the aerobics club?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I thought about trying it to keep fit.”

She seemed to look me up and down.

“Are you that thing from the biology department?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Can’t make her mind up if she’s male or female.”

“What?”

“You heard, now piss off, there’s a good girl–we don’t need your sort.” She turned her back and waltzed off sniggering. I was left there nearly in tears.

“Wossup, Charlie?” asked Denise, a fellow student from the biology department.

“Nothing,” I said trying to hold back the tears.

“You weren’t trying to chat up the banshee, were you?”

“Who me?”

“No of course not–you don’t do girls, do you?”

“Nor boys,” I added quickly.

“Pity, I’m sure there’d be plenty who’d find you attractive–you’da made a pretty girl, Charlie. You’ve got lovely hair, too.”

My locks were growing again–I’d tried to go straight when I went off to Sussex, cut my hair quite a bit shorter, but not entirely so, it was only down to my shoulders not half way down my back as it had been.

“Can we talk about something else?”

“Yeah, why were you talking to the banshee?”

“Is that what they call her?”

“That’s the polite name.”

“What are the others then?” I was intrigued.

“I’m not saying, they’d drum me out of the Ranger Guides if I did.”

“I didn’t know you were in the Guides, Denise.”

“Why, d’you want to join?”

“I–er think there might be problems with that.”

“Yeah, they have girl scouts but no boy guides–pity, you might have started a trend, though they’d never have noticed with you. Have you ever thought about wearing makeup and dresses?”

I blushed.

“Ooh, so you have–don’t worry, your secret is safe with me–if you pay for the cuppas.” Blackmail in one so young.

That conversation was thankfully interrupted by several more of our lot coming over for lunch. We were doing dissections–not my favourite form of pastime, tracing the nervous system of dogfish or playing with the brains of a rat. However, I was very good at preparing slides and at one point I was almost making it an industry, selling slides to my colleagues, mainly the boys, who were too heavy handed or lazy to do their own. Dr Cobham, our lecturer in microscopy knew what was going on–it happened most years. “Why is it always some girl who’s good at doing it and not one of the boys?” When I overheard that, I began to wonder if he knew something or if he was as myopic as they said. However, put a microscope in his hands and he was brilliant–publish dozens of papers on techniques and staining slides. Nowadays, you don’t even have to draw what you see, just attach it to a computer and you can make as many images as you like and alter them to show the best light. In my day, it was drawing or if you were wealthy enough, a special adapter for a SLR camera. Okay, so I had one of those too.

Fortunately, Tom doesn’t know about my murky past in microscopy or he’d be asking me to do the basic stuff with the first years–how can they come on a biology course without knowing anything about it? Just thought, if I’m a reader not just a lecturer, then I won’t have to teach first years–just keep an eye on post grad students. You know stop them selling off the department’s computers to pay for a round of drinks or a worse habit.

There is a footnote to Kelly O’Malley’s story, she got herself up the duff to one of the professors, or so it was rumoured and being a good Catholic girl, she couldn’t have a termination–except she wasn’t good and did pay a visit to some quack in Brighton over a weekend. However, her parents got to hear of it, and they were devout–she was taken home the next weekend and never heard from again. I think she was an architecture student–so if there’s a niche for designing torture chambers–she’s probably filling it. The foetus she lost probably had a lucky escape.

I eventually tore myself from my bed and the radio and nipped into the shower in the hope that it was only the dirt that was keeping my eyelids closed. It turned out it wasn’t, they felt as tired as they did before I got all wet and soapy. I dried off and went back to the bedroom–Simon was still in bed. Had he died in the night and I hadn’t noticed?

“Finished?” he asked and got out of bed with the biggest–too much information, I know.

“You don’t normally wait for me to finish.”

“You don’t normally get up at seven o’clock on a Saturday.”

“Shit–is it Saturday?”

“All day, babes.”

I sat on the side of the bed and felt like weeping–I could have had another hour in bed.

‘...And in the Giro d’Italia, Mark Cavendish won his fourth stage and his one hundred and first win. On to the racing...”

Oh good, something’s going okay then, the Manx Missile is back on song.