Here is this morning’s dream had between 5 and 7 AM. I did not think I would go back to sleep but had this from which I awoke exhausted and grilled.

The dream starts in South West London, with a feel of Richmond Wimbledon etc.. I am with a younger man, mid-late thirties. He has bright blonde hair and is tall and slim. He is immaculately dressed in an English suit, overcoat and with expensive English shoes. He is smooth and accustomed to handling people. He is privately school educated and has a crisp posh accent. He has not seen much sun and is a pale indoors person from a high social class family, hence a part of the firm. He is skilled in meet and greet {think main character Pine in The Night Manager only better}. We are in his shared house and getting ready to go into town. There are two other men and one Serbian or Bosnian woman who live there. The hallway to the house has very small black and white tiles and the door is of a large ornate stained glass kind. The implication is that they all work together. They are all high functioning.

The woman is in the kitchen and opens the door out. Bibi our adopted stray cat runs out into the garden. We need to get the cat in because they are all returning to work. In the garden there is a golf style sand bunker. Bibi is in it and wants to play. I go over and sweep her up onto my shoulder as is customary and bring her back into the kitchen. The house is period with original features. It has an Aga over which is a wooden slats clothes dryer, raised by a pulley and cord. The kitchen is massive and decked out for cooking and entertaining. I let Bibi off my shoulder onto the kitchen table and say that I will be back later to drive her home. The woman speaks with an accent to the cat. She is also tall and lithe, gymnastic even. To an extent they are all humouring me as they have been told to do.

I go outside with the young man through a tiled entrance area from what once was the scullery up to street level. I comment that it is nice that all the original enamelled tiles remain. We are running a little behind schedule and we make our way to the ticket office of the over ground railway. The man in the ticket office hands me a small bundle of documents hand sized ~4 by 6 inches. In this is a cardboard “wallet” of yellowed colour and age. In it are old photos of the male side of my family some of whom are in their military uniform. He has gotten them out of records and I must give them to the blond man. The documents contain old out of circulation Sterling banknotes. I hand them to my “guide”.

He takes them and gets two old school train tickets for us. The man form the ticket office says that the next train is at 4:30.  We look at the clock it is nearly an hour to wait. He says that “they” are waiting for us upstairs.

We go up into a busy bar come waiting area. It is lively, there is a hubbub and people are drinking. At one end of the room there is a long rectangular table around which are sat a number of people, less than ten. They are all male ranging in age from mid-thirties to my age. Most of them are wearing suits. They are going to interview me for a “job”. The notion it is for a glass company like Pilkington. The whole things seems weird to me because I have made no job application. They are sort of “head hunting”. The “guide” ushers me to the head of the table and sits me down. The man in charge at the other end of the table welcomes me and says that they are going to ask me a few questions. There is a lot of interplay between panel members. I have a knowing that at least two people on the panel are from the security services, they are British. There is a possible third who says nothing but who had a distinctly American air. He is the only black person on the panel amidst the nondescript white men. He is focussed and attentive.

The chair asks me about patents. I say that I have three granted patents, two on Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV). He asks me how these were filed. I say that when were knocking the ideas of a company about I started the ball rolling by going to Kilburn and Strode to draw up the first patent application. I look to one of the men to my left. The penny drops I have met him before very briefly at Kilburn and Strode. He is a government patent attorney. I claim him and he says that yes, he was there, I too looked vaguely familiar. They want to know who I worked with at Kilburn and Strode. I can’t remember the name except that it was Welsh sounding and that he has gone on to be a senior partner. I suggest that they look him up on the internet. They take over the entertainment screen in the bar and give me some new fangled clicker to run the search. I do not know how to use it. This bemuses them. I say that I have never seen a device like this before. They are disappointed in me. The chair says why would I have used one of these things before.

One of the junior members of the panel asks me about my exam results. Somehow, he has a file about me open on his desk. It has my photo and multiple sheets of paper therein; it is about half a centimetre thick. He has withdrawn the file from records for this purpose. I say that I got four “A”s and four “B”s at “O” level and BCC at “A” level. He tuts unimpressed. I explain to him that this was before rampant grade inflation. He inquires what about the recent “E” grade. I say that I have no idea what he is talking about. I joke that it was my self-taught grade for computer science. One of the panel gestures for him to desist. He backs off.

One of the security people wants again to know whom I worked with at Kilburn & Strode. The name still escapes me. For some reason it is very important for the security guy. I say to him that I have a relatively recent patent grant for a patent entitled “Electric Field Induced Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion” * . He really wants to know who I worked with all those years ago.

At the far end of the table there is a discussion, which I am not privy to, going on. It is very animated. I remain pretty unsure as to why I am there and what they could possibly want from me. I am incongruous in their company and the plush opulent bar like setting. I can feel that somehow it is important to them but I have no notion of why. It is tiring all that stress.

As I come to, I remember that it was Gwilym Roberts, all those years ago.

The dream ends

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* The full patent title is “Increasing the probability of generating entangled photon pairs using Electric Field Induced Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion”.

From The Kilburn an Strode Web Site

Arguably the highest profile patent attorney in Europe, Gwilym Roberts advises clients on all aspects of the patent process including IP audit and capture, IP filing strategies and patent portfolio management techniques. He acts for a range of clients including individuals, SMEs, Universities, and spin outs through to multi-nationals and handles a broad and diverse range of cases before the UK Patent Office, EPO and WIPO.