Thwarted Believers in the Whale,

I can conclusively say that Dundee is a pit. I’ve always had many reasons to dislike it; I based my decision not to study at its yooni on the basis that its campus had too many shadows and its stewdent population had too many goths, there are many rough areas in the city, The View are from Dundee and currently, we have a major case of anti-social behaviour in our street which has a strong Dundonian connection, but I’ve always thought the city was okay for shopping.

I started the day by arriving at work very early, just after the doors were unlocked. Strange things go on outwith 9 to 5. One of the others who share the office was doing one of her strange webchats that involve shouting. The “technical staff” at work can be unpredictable, I’ve had run-ins with a few of them by now, currently, and I’m rather bemused by the cleaners. They seem to have disowned my bin ever since I improvised with a Tescos carrier bag when the bin liner was full, annoyingly, they move things and absurdly, remove protective packaging from scientific equipment. Today, it was the turn of a green envelope, which was in my notoriously awkward-to-open drawer of the filing cabinet, to be placed on my desk without reason, it might have been someone else, perhaps it was a prop in the web broadcast; after all, it is a lovely envelope, I only kept it because it is green.

Anyway, circumstances dictated that I my experimental work was finished by lunchtime. Nothing has come of my big blunder yet, but I know there are consequences. I could have continued working up in the office but it was a bit disruptive today and there was a horrible smell in the building. I am hopeless at identifying smells, it was hydrogen sulphide, sulphur dioxide or ammonia, maybe it was throughout the building, or maybe it just accompanied me, which would be worrying. I decided to spend an hour or so in Dundee.

Had I had a passenger with me, I could have told my anecdote about the village of St Michaels as I passed through: once upon a time, I was visiting Dundee, I passed through St Michaels innocuously on the way there but home from Dundee, in St Michaels, I missed the junction that I should have taken, so I did an about turn in a hotel car park and continued back to the junction and subsequently home. Around an hour, after I arrived home, the police arrived at the door. My vehicle had been reported to them for “loitering suspiciously” at two separate times that day in the village. I explained what I had done that day, the police apologised and left. I would always advise never to go somewhere and come home by the same route.

Dundee never had anything to buy and every shop played Mika. Although Fopp was a haven, The Trials of Van Occupanther by Midlake was on; whilst perusing the Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy albums, I noticed, in a heart-warming moment, that there was also a compartment on their shelves for Broomheads Jacket. I left the shopping centres, suitably bustled, barged, nudged and clipped by oddballs who didn’t apologise, without purchasing anything. I stopped in at Marks & Spencers for a sandwich, I love sandwiches. The Dundee outlet was full of people who think they are better than everyone else, more so than any other branch that I’ve been in, and the service was terrible. The till attendant, Rose-Marie, held everyone up by hobnobbing with her snooty friends who were ahead in the queue. I ought to see that Rose-Marie is sacked but it appears that Rose-Marie is well-liked by her co-workers. I left Dundee pledging to myself avoid it as much as is possible from here on in.

Today's photo features the Firth of Forth, it's more pleasant.