Gertsamtkunstwerk

Sod's law

Have you ever noticed that you never feel so thirsty, or in need of a bath, just after a water main bursts and deprives you of running water? You never know how much you need it until it's gone.

Ah well, this week won't be the first time I've walked all the way to Brixton in order to get to Kings College Hospital for an outpatient's appointment on account of Brixton Hill being closed to all traffic. Not that I know it will be, but it has happened three times in my decade here. Fortunately, on two of those occasions I didn't have an outpatients' appointment.

Looking on the bright side, there isn't actually any snow on the ground...

Bolshie me Part 2

Approximately ten feet from my front window is a building site. It used to be a car showroom. In a year or two it will be hundreds of overpriced jerry-built yuppie flats. In the meantime it is a building site.

This morning they erected a two storey portacabin directly outside my window. Photos will be taken tomorrow...

When I came home at seven o’clock there was diesel generator (we think) running, directly outside my neighbours' bedroom window and audible, above the TV, from my house. At ten o'clock it was still running. At five past ten I phoned the Noise Patrol. They should be here by eleven.

To be honest, I do not know what they can do; I am fairly certain that it probably isn't a statutory nuisance. I shall be onto Planning in the morning seeking advice about what we can do about inconsiderate builders.

I am of no doubt they will pass me to another department. I do not expect to get very far very soon. The building work began in earnest this week. I shall be watching them like a hawk. Unfortunately, there isn't much one can do during normal working hours, except grin-and-bear it, but if they dare take liberties, I want them to know we will not tolerate it. Hopefully, by being proactive from the outset we will send a clear signal to the builders that they mess with us at their peril.

I fully expect that this, together with the sauna that is my workplace, will send me into a nervous breakdown. So I thought I might as well blog the process and you can watch me fall apart, car-crash bloggery.

I shall then have to decide whether to sue my employer or to sue the developers. Or both. Or you lot, for watching it happen, car-crash style. (This is where I'm supposed to insert a smiley to let you know I'm just kidding...)

Update: At quarter to eleven the noise patrol arrived and agreed that it was loud; agreed that we mustn't let the builders take liberties. They offered the view that it might be a pump, which would make sense because there are artesian wells dotted all round the area, a minor tributary of the Effra is said to run under the site, and the last two sets of yuppie flats that went up had terrible problems with sub-ground water. There did used to be a brewery and tannery very near here decades ago. And I wouldn't really know whether the site was properly cleared before it was built on following the demolition of the houses by a V1, or was it a V2, I don't remember.

The noise patrol said I should contact the office tomorrow, so that the daytime officers can visit the site during working hours, but they agreed it was sensible to call them out to vouch for the fact that it's running. Then, as he was leaving, one of them said "Are you a councillor?"

I laughed "I used to be - nearly four years ago now - I'm history, we select the next candidates next week." Prospective candidates I meant, of course. They don't become candidates until the nomination papers are submitted in April.

(I was, of course, Britain's first blogging councillor, but the archives from that period are no longer on this site...)

Howling

My neighbour next door is howling again.

Surprisingly, this does not make me angry.

I'm not exactly a quiet person, so have fairly little room to manoeuvre. I would hate to live next door to a quiet person, who complains at the sound of a light being turned on.

His howling did not disturb my enjoyment of Waking the Dead, although it was audible during the pauses in University Challenge.

Now I'm listening to a CD with headphones on, so, again, it doesn't bother me.

It's just pitiful, really.

Eevrybody sings around their home, either to a CD, or to an instrument, or a capella. Most of us would die of mortification if random strangers were to hear us.

Sadly, my next door neighbour is reported to be a professional musician.

Sadly, I can strum a guitar as well as him.

Even more sadly, he paractices sometimes four hours a day. And he never gets beyond the one chord. And the howling. Sometimes its more like yodelling. But tonight it's definitely howling.

I did describe it as Bob Dylan but without the lyricism or tunefulness.

On reflection, that does Mr Dylan a grave disservice.

It's definitely more like a wolf yodelling. Falsetto.

It seems, from t'internet, that the house has been sold. Whetehr they remain as sitting tenants, I don't know. Or whether we get new neighbours.

It's always a bit tension making, that. Do I want house-sharers who think two o'clock on the morning I start a new job is the best time to have a party, replete with bongo-playing?

Or do I want an aspirant couple replete with 1.8 children who anxiously explain that they would rather we didn't talk in the house between 2 and 4pm or after 7pm because it would wake the baby?

Or do I want someone who lets their cat poo in my garden?

Always a time of tension...

Update from Stinky Central

The Bulgarian mafioso* who actually owns next door's Little Portugal is currently burning wood on a bonfire in the back garden. I've had to close the back door and the back windows to prevent us being stunk out (but at least it isn't rancid lamb fat).

The wind is blowing in the direction of Colombia. I wonder how long the Colombian washing will stay on the line; or the Colombian backdoor will remain open? I must find out if the Australians and the French are as pissed off as we are.

What's the Spanish for Schadenfreude?

* did I ever tell you about how he beat up the Japanese man who was supposedly his friend/caretaker/tenant? Remind me to tell you the tales of Great Uncle Bulgaria of Balham.

The attention switches...

The barbecue at the back seems to have died down after twelve hours, and now it's Portugal next door taking over from Colombia at the back.

He's kicked off again. Drunk and abusive and loud and violent. If I can be sure he's hitting her and not just slamming doors, breaking furniture, and throwing things, I'll call the police.

Mind you, I think she can look after herself. She was the first woman gunner in the Portuguese army.

And it makes a change from the horrendous caterwauling he does whilst accompanying himself on three chord guitar or synth played with all the skill of a Grade 3 pianist. He's a professional musician, apparently. Although another neighbour informed me they're both taking courses at the moment.

"Oh, is he learning to sing?" I enquired sweetly. My other neighbour couldn't move for laughing.

It's never a dull moment round here, I can tell you...

Who says Romance is dead?

Jimmy bought me a present...

Albert and Randy

I went to meet my sister and neplings on Monday as they travelled to my cousin's place. According to my nephew's extended writing book, my cousin lives in a terrorist house. My cousin insists it's semi-detached. End of terrorist, I think.

I was thinking of bringing Albert and Randy with me, but Albert was tired after his long weekend. And Randy had a lot of catching up to do. Good thing, too, because Sophie the Koala has fleas, and Teddy has nits.

I don't want my boys going anywhere near that sort of stuff...

This evening, it seemed that the boys had a row.

Jimmy went upstairs. Would you believe that Randy was on the floor. Albert was on the bed, with a CD case. You know who the CD was of.

I don't know if Randy's jealous, and, if so, who of, but I don't like seeing my teddies fighting.

Day off

It's Jimmy's birthday today. His proper one, that is, not the pretend one he had last week. He was born during the London Olympics.

He's not a well boy. Stinking cold, thanks to certain over-indulgences last week. Let's gloss over, shall we.

I went to bed last night and was just getting to sleep, in a rather pleasant lucid dream phase. I now don't recall the dream but I do recall the sensuous snuggly feeling that comes from the feel of fresh bedding on skin. He started tossing and turning, and sneezing and coughing and generally making me feel sea-sick. Wide awake, I lay in bed thinking glumly I will never get to sleep. So I came downstairs, and returned at 4 am, when he gets up.

Currently, the car showroom outside my house is being demolished. They have an impressively manly tool that chops up concrete, reverberating around most of South London, literally shaking my house. I remind myself that having withstood V2s landing on the said car showroom site, a little bit of mechanical demolition is not going to harm it. They built houses to last in the days of King William. It also leaves a film of dust throughout the house. The old dilemma - keep dusting, or just leave it until they have finished.

Actually it's bloody annoying, and according to the newsagent, someone is going to complain because the dust is affecting her asthma. Apparently, they ought to have covered the site with tarpaulin - which, I don't think is customary. But despite its annoyingness, one can't really complain if they limit their demolition to 9-5 M-F, which, thus far, they do. I suppose I ought to take photos, but I can't be arsed.

So 9.30, I'm lying in bed feeling, literally, the earth move. Wondering about my chances of getting back to sleep. There's a loud knock on the door. I sigh, but feel I ought to get up. I pull on my dressing gown and am just halfway down the stairs when the knock comes again. "Coming!" I call out and open the door.

It's Mr Postman and he has a package I honestly did not think would be delivered until tomorrow. Tomorrow, when I would have no chance to listen to it.

But it came today, about which I feel slightly guilty, it being Jimmy's birthday.

Cordoned off

Michelle has posted a photograph taken just yards from my house (the pub on the left is the oft-mentioned Crown & Sceptre)

I am feeling so stroppy

I am surfing the web, and I have discovered, thanks to London Borough of Lambeth | Pollution control - smoke, smells and fumes that my disgusting neighbours who pollute my house with the smell of their rotting carcasses and their barbecue are potentially liable for a fine of up to £5000. Just a shame that Liberal Democrat Lambeth doesn't start its noise patrol until 10pm - exactly what am I getting from my steeply inflated Council tax from these wankers?

Isn't it extraordinary that people think they can get away with this?  Isn't it extraordinary that there will be legislation to ban smoking cigarettes from restaurants and pubs regardless of the wishes of the owner or tenant, and people seem convinced that this will be enforceable, yet is socially acceptable to blow fumes of smoke, and meat, univited into someone else's house with the Local Authority seemingly powerless to prevent this?

So, tomorrow I shall contact Environment Services. Quite how I can prove then what is happening now, I don't know. 

Update: I had just written this, and inadvertently posted, when I thought 'photo'

I also thought avi, so shot a very amateurish filmclip which shows how the smoke is blowing directly to me. I tried to upload the photos and the clip, but my E drive manage to crash my browser, then the phone rang, the caller being the subject of the next post, so then I had to make another phonecall, and received one in connection.

Watering the garden

One of the simple pleasures in life. Other Half finally gave into my nagging and acquired a hosepipe (cue - hosepipe ban). He has been taking responsibility.

On Sunday, I persuaded my mother not only that her garden needed watering but that, also, I was the person to do it. She was all for me filling and refilling the watering can from the water butt. She's good like that, my mother, she invented reduce/reuse before anyone else had ever heard of recycle. (Note to Joseph, Eleanor and Ben: Grandma is cool!)

But I thought 'sod that for a game of soldiers'. After about ten refillings, I was sweaty and knackered and the garden, not enormous, was barely touched.

So I insisted on the hosepipe. It made me feel quite manly, in a girly sort of way.

What a difference it makes! The very flowers leap into action, revived, they sing "Thank you Gert!". The temperature falls, the air freshens.

I finally persuaded Significant Other to let me do our garden. Twenty minutes I stood there saturating our gorgeous but small cottage garden (note to Eleanor - our garden is beautiful, full of flowers...).

It is one of the gorgeous, simple pleasures that makes life worthwhile.

Identity fraud

Our weekly opinion notice board on the intranet asked last week what steps we as individuals were taking to prevent our IDs being stolen eg buying a shredder, refraining from shopping online, redirecting the post after moving or nothing at all.

Somebody called Robert said

Bought a Shredder… now I need Splinter, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael to help me stop him taking over the world!

On a more serious note: I also shred all correspondence (makes it easier to put in the envelope although rather more difficult for the recipient to read) and always use my wife’s credit card for my numerous online purchases.

Someone else says shes puts all her shredded paper onto the compost heap. I am surprised at this - I wouldn't have thought it would biodegrade so quickly. Any expertise out there? In fact, anybody got any good idea about composters, because that is what Jimmy is getting for his birthday?

An evening at home

Those of you have been reading this blog some time, oh, you know, maybe a couple of weeks, and especially those related to me, be you commenters or lurkers, know that I am not exactly the world's most organised person. This can be summarised by the 'Magazine Pile'. I subscribe to four magazines - two weekly and two monthly. I tend to read the New Statesman when I'm travelling around or, for example, like today, in the hairdresers. Public Finance is boring, and it's not even worth my while looking at the job ads for the next few months. But I ought to read it for updates in my profession, so sometimes I do, even though it generally focuses on the petty shenanigans of Local Government and forgets that many of its members work in Central Governemnt (or indeed the Health Service, Practice, or Industry).

I actually get BBC Music and Gramophone mainly for the CDs that are attached, so the magazines just get tossed on the pile to be read. Sometimes, I am organised enough to toss them to the bottom of the pile. Until Saturday evening, the pile was residing on the dining table, but we decided to eat dinner sitting up at table, so Jimmy shifted the two piles (please note, I cooked...) - Things-to-Read and Things-to-Deal-With - onto the sofa, to join the third pile Things-Not-Yet-Classified/Things-Miscellaneous (mailshots, sunglasses, empty cassette boxes, camera battery etc). In moving the Things-To-Read he unearthed My-Secret-Stash-of-Porn™*, which was slightly embarrassing but not very.

This morning's post had been flung on top of the mixed up Things-to-Read and Things-to-Deal-With piles, which in themselves were sitting higgledy-piggledy with the Things-Not-Yet-Classified/Things-Miscellaneous pile. So this evening, I decided I really ought to re-sort all Things. That involved opening this morning's post - Sky Magazine (remove plastic cover place remainder straight in recycling bin) and Gramophone Magazine. Oh god, I thought, yet another magazine to not get round to reading, and tossed it onto the table to form the bottom of the new Things-to-Read pile. As I was busy sorting through empty envelopes, out of date mailshots, staff-pass-holder-cords, make-up purse (that's where it got to) etc I glanced at the Gramophone magazine and thought "That's a very nice picture of Simon Rattle and his Dvorak Tone Poems" - ooh, Sir Simon's gone all Czech, wonder why..."but that's an advert. I wonder what's on the front..." This is the August Gramophone Magazine, so hot off the Presses it's not even on the Website yet, which as I write is still showing its July cover (DFD at 80).

Actually, you know what I'm going to say don't you..."Domingo Records Tristan: Plácido on opera's toughest assignment and when he'll stop singing. Plus Star Tenors, the Next Generation" And inside, six pages, which I think I shall settle down to read with a nice gin-and-bitter-lemon, but only after I've packed my bag for work tomorrow.

And the Gramophone CD 'Cover Story' is Act I scene 5 (excerpt) from Tristan und Isolde. Obviously, it's dificult to judge a four hour opera from a 6½ minute excerpt, but I think I might stick my neck out, take a risk and buy the whole thing.

There are some other nice tracks on this CD, always good to hear a sampler of what's being released. There's a lovely excerpt from Gluck's Paride ed Elena (no, I've not heard of it either) and I was thinking, ooh, this sounds lovely, I might get this, ooh this is a gorgeous soprano voice. I wonder who it is. And I look, and I know I'm going to get it. The Guardian only gives it three stars and says

Cult mezzo Magdalena Kozena and silvery soprano Carolyn Sampson sound gorgeous, but are on the cool side as Paris and Cupid respectively. The best performance is Susan Gritton's Helen

So, the moral of this story is - it's really not good to be organised, because I have just spent £60 in the course of writing this post....

* It's not really Porn, it's Opera News, M Lifestyle, and Classic FM Magazine that have not yet been added to My-Even-More-Secret-Stash-Of-Porn™ in the spare room

Plumbing

For a few days we have been conscious of a bit of a whiffy smell. He has claimed it's the kitchen sink, I have claimed it's the shower. He said we should put bleach down, I said we need Soda Crystals and a bit of plunging, but didn't actually do anything, whilst he put down some bleach, which helped a bit.

I pulled the plug out in the kitchen sink this afternoon and heard a glug-glug coming from the shower room. I stuck my head round the door and noticed a back wash coming into the shower.

Suddenly, he's going on about Spirit of Salts. Means nothing to me, but out he pops to the local hardware shop and comes back with Spirit of Salts. It's gruesome stuff, covered in warnings, and, although in liquid form, it gives off a noxious gas.

A bit of Googling later, it turns out to be Hydrochloric Acid, 'one of the most corrosive of the non-oxidizing acids'. If mishandled

Exposure to hydrochloric acid can cause circulatory collapse which may lead to death; it can also cause asphyxial death due to glottic oedema. It can also cause conjunctivitis and corneal burns, inflammation and ulceration of the respiratory tract, dermatitis, skin burns, rhinitis, laryngitis, tracheitis, bronchitis, pulmonary oedema, dental erosion, hoarseness, a feeling of suffocation, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, dehydration, convulsions, oliguria, hypotension, chills, shock, lethargy, stupor, permanent visual damage, cough, and choking. Ingestion or skin contact with hydrochloric acid can cause corrosion of mucous membranes of the mouth, throat, and oesophagus, with immediate pain and dysphagia; it can also cause gastric haemorrhage and intense thirst.

So, he poured it down the sink and down the shower (using an old w-u-l bottle as an applicator) and we ran to the garden for 20 minutes.

For about five minutes I ran the tap down the sink. It wasn't nearly half as bad as it was before. Again I suggested plunging, and produced an actual plunger from under the sink (much to his surprise - the same surprise he expressed when I produced electric drill, spirit level, thing for detecting pipes and cables etc etc). I ran the sink tap and he plunged the shower.

What a foul smell, a mixture of HCl and mouldy soap etc! We're doing another run with the Spirit of Salts, and it will soon be time for me to run the tap again, hoping that Fresh Air will disperse the smell by morning.

What Jimmy didn't know is that I'm actually quite handy at Emergency Plumbing.

He's now going on about how useful Hydrochloric Acid is for disposing of bodies in the bath...

A note to my next-door neighbour

Quick quiz. Is it more stupid to:

a) use a barbecue in a garden little bigger than 12' x 12', thus ensuring that the rooms of your immediate neighbours are filled with smoke and the smell of rancid meat; or

b) use a barbecue to cook foods that will, regardless of their quality, always taste better when cooked on a conventional cooker?

Hope you get food poisoning, H.

PS You might be a professional "musician" but you really really can't sing. The fact that I can hear your caterwauling over my loudspeakers, with all the downstairs windows and doors shut, really shows that you have no shame and no self-awareness. And no musical sense.

PPS Revenge will mine, and it will be a dish I shall eat cold. Next time you beat your wife, or even row in the middle of the night, I shall be the one calling the police. Depend upon it.

*proving that even if you can't fool all the people all the time, or most of the people most of the time, you can fool enough suckers often enough...

Kitchen floor tiles

Many years ago, not long after I had moved into Gert Cottage I decided to redecorate the kitchen. I spent one whole weekend painting it, and I have to say, it looked pretty damned good. I had even managed to dispose of a man in the process - he had offered to help, and knowing that he would want to take over, in a manly sort of way, and knowing that the relationship was coming to a natural end, I declined his offer.

Having completed the painting and got hardly any orange paint in my hair, I took a long hard look and realised that the kitchen tiles looked manky.

I spent some time researching, and then buying. I spent most of a Saturday scraping off the old cork tiles to return to the original concrete floor (the kitchen is a 20th Century extension to my pre-Victorian Cottage). I used a paint scraper and, very sensibly, I wore gardening gloves. With a rich variety of music blasting on the CD player it was not a bad way to spend a Saturday.

Sunday I laid new vinyl tiles. I have to say, for a complete novice, I did a truly splendid job. Many visitors commented on how good it looked. Admittedly, they did not scrutinise too closely the bits where I had cut round the fridge. But, considering it was my first attempt at DIY, and my first ever time using a Stanley Knife, and considering that I have the wrong chromosomes for DIY, it was a bloody miracle.

That was 1996, and in the intervening years, the kitchen has seen a fair amount of usage. The orange paint still looks okay especially when it catches the late evening sun. But the last place one wants a trip hazard is in the kitchen.

So, a couple of weeks ago, Jimmy got some strong manly glue out of the lean-to/utility-room in order to stick back the kitchen tiles. He made some comment about how the adhesive had got all scrunched up on the reverse of the tile. I wondered what he was going on about. He said "Yes, it's still sticky..." "And this one, I've peeled the whole backing paper off." For a split second I felt an utter and total idiot, and then, wait for this,

"Ah, but I decided to use strong vinyl tile glue to stick them down on to the concrete floor, which, you will note, is quite uneven in places. It's a good thing that I did, because, look, they've stayed stuck down for nine years, apart from three or four that have come loose, so now, all you need to do is unpeel the backing paper, and press them onto the floor. Of course, it won't last as long as proper vinyl-tile-concrete-floor glue, but I'm sure it will do for now..."

I think I should have been a spin doctor..

But I do think there are two types of women - those that have men in their lives and those that can DIY. I used to be able to DIY, but now I have a man in my life. There's a sociology Ph. D theory waiting to be written there.

Drama at Gert Cottage

I'm at home; Jimmy is on the way to the pub.

I know that, because he phoned from the road at the bottom of our drive.

He wants to be at home, too.

But he can't come home.

Now, as pathetic excuses for going to the pub go, how do you rate, "I can't come home, the police won't let me, there's an armed incident on the corner."

So I went outside, and there's a bloke walking round in jeans and a jacket, and Met Police baseball cap. I was thinking of getting my camera out. But an armed incident...? I think I shall be stay indoors scaredy cat.

Update: Tentatively, I ventured out, then realised that half the neighbourhood was standing around gawping. So I joined them, having a laugh with the guys in the warehouse next door, about Jimmy having to go to the pub. I went back to get my camera, but the police were giving me stern looks. When you're given stern looks by plainclothes police in baseball caps, who might well, for all I know, be armed response officers, you don't take photos (amateurish, I know...). I spent a few minutes reassuring some little girls that if it was dangerous, the police wouldn't let us stand around gawping. I had explained to their mothers about Jimmy being banished to the pub. they looked at me bemused; I suddenly realised by their dress they were Moslem.

Two very young men were led away by the police, and I chatted to one of the officers. She explained that although they are plainclothes they wear the baseball caps for easy identification (I suppose if there is a shoot-out they don't want a man down.)

Jimmy came home and said that he was walking along with his plastic bag of shopping, and saw that the police were all looking at him. He suddenly realised his fly was undone.

I did think for a few moments it might have been The Bill filming. They have been known. But I think they were proper.

Robbery thwarted

I opened the back door to go out to the lean-to utility room when I heard a noise. It was either the clumsiest clodhopping urban fox in history or it was a startled burglar.

I say 'burglar'. I mean 'next door neighbour'. Moving the panels in the dividing fence to sneak into our garden to nick some buds off the cannabis plant.

I actually don't give a frigging shit about the cannabis plant. I give it away to invited guests (ssssh, don't tell Him Indoors...!). What I do object to is some scummy neighbour breaking in to nick it.

I hope the imminent fixing of a padlock to the gate will send out an even clearer message than the piece of wood with protruding nails that lies in front of the plant.

If they had knocked on the door, and offered a bottle of piss-poor vinho di tavolha, we would have said, "Come in, help yourselves. BTW, WTF does one do with it?" but as they have taken to prowling round my property under cover of darkness, you can be fairly certain that it won't be long until shot guns are procured...

Tension of ticket ordering/Neighbourhood Gossip

Last Thursday I sat down and ordered myself a shed-load of tickets. Mainly for the Barbican and the Royal Festival Hall, although a rather expensive one for Josep Carreras at the Royal Albert Hall . I said to Jimmy "It's midweek, I know you don't like Spanish Tenors, and, as it costs rather a lot of English tenners, I've ordered one just for myself..." (I'm now anxious, because I understand he's not that great these days, and I have forked out rather a lot of undodgy English tenners to be satisfied with a dodgy Spanish Catalonian tenor).

None of the tickets had arrived by this morning, admittedly in line with the published policy of all venues, but the RFH and Barbican tend, in my experience, to send them out by return of post. I also hadn't received my New Statesman last Friday, and had no post whatsoever on Saturday.

I rang up the RFH today and explained the situation, adding that I realise it is premature, but with the Barbican and New Statesman also going astray I was a bit worried. She said that they are due to be posted, but as the first one isn't for a few weeks, they will have gone out second class, and if they don't turn up to get in touch.

I wondered if I should go and knock on the neighbours. We have two sets of new neighbours, both renting. The Aussies are really sweet and invited us to their barbie, which we didn't attend, but appreciated their maners. Plus the fact that it was entirely non-intrusive - just a waft of conversation and a murmur of music that quietened by dark. The Portuguese are pleasant, and I am now used to their occasional passionate door-bangy differences of opinion at od hours of day and night. Jimmy has them a prime suspects for nicking the most succulent buds from our his cannabis plant.

Nevertheless I am nervous of door-banging and asking in a non-confrontational way "Do you have my post?" In a perfect world, we would redistribute post with alacrity; in the Real World, Round Tuit intrudes.

A few minutes ago, my New Statesman and my Barbican tickets appeared through the door. I opened the front door and called out 'Thank You'* I saw the charming but volatile Bulgarian landlord of next door (the Japanese guy claimed he beat him and denied him access to the house, in which were his clothes, credit cards, passport etc, so he slept in the car - Jimmy took him to the cafe for breakfast - he returned a few days later to settle up, which Jimmy hadn't expected). He was acknowledging my thanks. Perhaps H&M the Portuguese are away: I haven't heard them for a few days - he's a Musician, but as I explained to my middle-aged Irish neighbour, not in the sense we would say 'musician'. I'm now anxious, because maybe H&M aren't very good at Round Tuit on the postal front.

* remember, despite evidence to the contrary, I am a Nice Person

Just out of curiosity...

Does anybody else involve cuddly toys and dolls in their conversations? The number of times, I have thought 'I must blog what Albert*, or Hamish*, or Rosy-Primrose* said...', then I remember that Albert is a teddy-bear and doesn't really go out clubbing, that Hamish is a dog, and doesn't actually drink whisky and want to be a conductor, and Rosy-Primrose is a seven-inch baby doll and not actually a port-drinking computer addict. Robin Hood just sits there observing it all.

*The first person who can cite the literary inspirations for these names may win a Special Prize. If the Special Prizes ever get made...

The Can Do Girl

You would be amazed at how much I have achieved this week, just by dint of waving a magic wand.

On Tuesday I mended a CD rack. All I had to do was unload all the CDs, partly dismantle the rack, and put it back together again using only the four screws I hadn't been bothered to insert in the back when I originally built it last autumn...

On Wednesday morning I switched on the downstairs stereo and instead of my intention of pressing 'Tuner' as I had intended, I pressed 'CD' and it didn't make the funny noise it had been making in March when I had stopped using it as a CD player. (Instead I have had the upstairs CD player downstairs, which has been depriving me of upstairs CD playing for a long long time...).

This afternoon I removed the random image code from this ere blog - the error code at the top was beginning to bug me, not to mention the ridiculous load time. I subsequently noticed that my sidebar has stopped truncating and the index seems to rebuild properly every time someone leaves a comment. A subsequent entire site rebuild seems - touch wood - to be working. So Pete's diagnosis of the server timing out was correct. It just got sick of having to reel through way too many photos in the random file. I shall restore the feature in due course, but first I have to wade through selecting which photos to actually include.

Inspired by my wand-waving skills, I phoned the Environment helpline to point out that the bulk garden waste collection I requested last week still hasn't happened, and that our green boxes are being left unemptied. The woman on the helpline said that my house, and that of my three neighbours was not on the database. I was perfectly sweet, prefacing my remarks with a comment that I was not having a go at her personally, that she is merely the poor person who answers the phone, however, I find it irritating that our houses are on the Council Tax database. Twenty minutes later various actions have been logged*

Further fired up, I thought, I can do anything. It was time to mend the CD/DVD drive in the 'pooter. Everything unplugged and disconnected. First of, give it a good clean. You know the vent at the back, by the fan. Take a look at it sometime - matted and congealed dust. How do I clean that, I thought? A brush! What sort of brush? Aha, I thought, one of those make-up brushes that has been sitting in the drawer in my bedroom for years, never really serving a purpose...(what a grrrrl I am!).

And all I had to do with the CD/DVD drive was slot it back into box. No unfastening box nor nothing!

I so rock.

And in between backing up months of 'pooter stuff, and blogging, and checking my Usenet groups, I'm rearranging the kitchen cupboards.

God, I am so cool it's unbelievable.

* The Borough is going to rack and ruin since the Liberals started running it. If they can't get the Environmental issues right, god knows what's happening in education, social services, and corporate government. Well, actually, they are just being incompetent. That's for certain.

My responsibilities as Entertainment manager

I shall only briefly mention that we went to Windsor today. I may write more tomorrow, or tomorrow, or tomorrow. Just a warning - I took over a hundred photos...

We got home at about six o'clock. As we approached home, he said he'd park up and we'd go in Wetherspoons (I'd been salivating for a time about having a cider). But as we got very near home, I realised that what I wanted more than anything was a Nice Cup of Tea (hot and strong, like my men, er, man).

One thing led to another (oo er missus). I moved onto the Pimms, he moved onto the whiskey. It seemed to make perfect sense to recline in the garden.

My job is entertainment manager. This is in addition to being whore in the kitchen, chef in the bedroom. Something relaxing, he commanded. I put on Classical Chillout. Which is perhaps a little too mellow for a Saturday night. The nice new Aussies next-door-but-one were having a house warming, but civilised and moderately quiet, barbecue. We were invited, which was nice, but we decided not to go. The RA chair was having a party on the next road. We weren't invited - not really surprising, we are not RA people, really.

He wanted something lively, so I put on School Disco End of Term Party, fast forwarding through the crap ones. What fun I had singing along to Rupert the Bear, hamming it up to I've Never Been To Me, and reviving my wannabe-Clare Grogan (didn't everybody, back then?) act to I Could Be Happy. Even more fun hearing neighbours diverse singing along and discussing various tracks.

It was a good end to a school disco - I'll Find My Way Home, Love Is In The Air
and Last Christmas. Yes, that's right, Last Christmas. And, indeed, why not?

Himself said - you've awoken the passions of the Colombians and the Portuguese. What next?

There can only be one follow up - the sheer utter eroticism of Germany. I lack an entire Tristan und Isolde, so had to compromise with merely the Love Duet, which is almost certainly the most orgasmic music in my collection.

I don't think I've ever before lain out in the back garden, flat on my back on the Sit'n'Sleep, sipping Pimms and Lemonade, watching the sky darken and seeing the stars come out (in London? Stars?) whilst feeling entirely relaxed and perhaps even comforted by the chatter from the neighbouring gardens.

There's a film in post-production of Tristan and Isolde, but not Wagner's opera (which Leonard Bernstein believed to be the greatest work of art ever).

This living together thing

We have always joked about shift-sleeping. Yesterday afternoon he retired to bed in order to stay up late to watch Portugal-Spain. At 7pm he sent me to bed, because he could see that I was fading. As promised, he came to wake me up. "It's eight o'clock," he said. "Morning or evening?" I asked. The next thing I knew it was 9.15 and I had missed most of the game. Of course, he went to bed at 9.45.

My mobile rung, but before I could answer it, it had stopped ringing. Caller display said it was Jimmy. Then the house phone rang, so I went downstairs to answer it. All the clocks said it was quarter past five. I'm panicking, I'm supposed to be at the Festival Hall at five. Then there's a knock on the door. "Who is it," I shout. It's Jimmy. I warn him I'm entirely naked, and I open the front door. He's left his keys in the house. "What time is it?" I ask. "Quarter past five," he says. "Have I slept all this time? I'm supposed to be out before four." "In the morning," he says and leaves me.

I go to have a shower. Next I hear his voice. I nearly fall down in the shower with shock. He's shocked at seeing me naked again. Coming into the house and hearing no reply, he assumes I'm asleep upstairs, so goes to the shower room to rinse off the worst of the bacon smell. Despite the sound of running water, he didn't expect to find me in the shower...

He's decided to give up smoking. Today. Bastard. I got him reading the evangelism of Naked Blog. He's cleared off down the pub. It won't last. Not on a day that England play Croatia.

Somebody should do a doctoral thesis on why Spain never live up to expectations. Maybe they should learn that football isn't played on paper...

Co-habiting update

So far, it's been interesting...Monday was our first proper day. So he went and got drunk. Actually, because he was upset. But I then had to put up with him being drunk. Later he thanked for me my patience and understanding; I didn't have the heart to tell him I was doing it to demonstrate that I am the indispensable good girlfriend.

The last two days have been pleasant. He has come home and we have sat in the garden eating and drinking in moderation - today I had a bottle of Isle of Arran blond, with my meal.

After eating we potter in the garden - watering, feeding, trimming. Today he taught me how to water the garden, until it dawned on me I have been watering this garden since the summer of 1996 and for four summers previous to that I maintained a planter garden on my balcony. I actually learnt to water a garden in the 60s, when I had a little red watering can with a little yellow rose and a picture of a little girl watering a garden etched in relief...

He watches the TV, I sit on the computer, and wander in for bleeding chunks of the match or the news. With him on the sofa and me at the computer we can see each other and talk to each other. It seems to be working. Except, for some reason, I keep excusing myself to go to the loo, rather than just going. That will start annoying me soon!

All change

Ha, so much for bloghorrea. I didn't realise until 12.30 pm that Jimmy was moving in, permanently at 4pm today.

Oh god, for the first time in my life I am a cohabiting woman.

I've read about people like me.

Police Raid

I've just been raided by the police! There's never a dull moment in Brixton, man!

Next door's burglar alarm was going off. To my shame I didn't think anything of it, because when I got in half an hour previously I could hear their TV through the wall.

The next thing I know, the police are hammering on my door asking if they can get through to the back garden of next door, via mine. So, of course, as the good citizen, I let them through and they climb over the dividing fence. Ooh, I must blog this I thought. My blog-readers will think that I'm a really exciting drug fiend.

Drug fiend...

Bugger, I'm supposed to be watering the cannabis plant.

How much chutzpah does it take to water the cannabis plant in the middle of a police raid?

Do I rock or do I kick ass?

He's moving in - I think...

It's nearly four years since we started 'going out', dating, courting. So many people ask the question 'why don't you live together?'. The answer - he was living with his father as carer. His father house was rented, so Jimmy is now homeless. Well, not exactly...

He arrived on Sunday morning laden down with all sort sof stuff, notably plants dug up to be replanted, cookery books, and bottles and bottles of booze. And a little desktop tidy, containing, amongst other things, corners of envelopes with stamps and postmarks of 1939 and 1940, addressed to WRB Jones Esquire 44 New Dock Road Llanelli.

I have now acquired garden furniture, and the clothes will be coming soon - I have to do some serious wardrobe blitzing. Soon the man himself will move in. At which point I will surrender and agree to a TV in the bedroom. I will also get some decent headphones, not those silly in-ear ones that come with Walkmans. He wants to erect a shed at the bottom of the garden for garden and DIY tools etc, turning the lean-to back to a utility room, with additional shelves for bottles and bottles of booze.

It's going to be strange.

Why I hate technology

No 361 in a series

I'm having trouble with CDs. The CD/DVD drive of my pooter appears to be broken. It appears as far as I can see to be a purely mechanical fault. It sticks out priapically. I suppose I should take the box apart and see if I can cure it magically with WD40 or something.

Now the CD changer on my downstairs stereo appears to have given up the ghost. Again, I suspect it's mechanical. It suddenly stopped playing. Just like that. The trays won't open, which is a bit of bugger, because inside are trapped two CDs from the Best Album in the World...Ever series. A bloody good album, too.

So I think I want a new stereo. Definitely one with a multi-changer. I am wondering whether to get an SACD player. It's probably premature to own one now, but I understand that SACD is the future, at least for classical music. So I may regret in a year or two not having an SACD. On the other hand, I doubt any of my usual hit-and-run outlets have them. And I want a new CD player...now. Okay, I have the upstairs one, which is incredibly beautiful, and I suppose I can play CDs in the DVD player, through the TV. But I want instant gratification.

Early start

On Tuesday, I had to get to Gatwick by 7 am. Factoring in the possibility of delays etc, I ordered a cab for 5am. On the dot of 5am the cab firm phoned to tell me that the cab was outside. I went outside, but there was no sign of the cab. I phoned the firm, which said it was on 'X' road. I pointed out that I don't live on 'X' road. I was asked where my house is - on the A-Z, I said. Parallel to 'X' road. The controller said he would send the car round. After more than five minutes it still hadn't materialised, so I was back onto the firm. I explained that standing around on the street in a 'red light' area at 5 am in the morning made me feel very vulnerable and I found this unacceptable. The controller understood.

Then the car came. The driver said, "It's dreadful round here. I only just stopped on 'X' road, and there were prostitutes banging on the door."

"I know," I said. "I felt very vulnerable hanging around on the road in the dark."

"Oh, you're not....?" he asked.

"No, I have a business meeting at 7 am," I said fiercely.

End or hiatus?

After years of being nagged by my sister and my fiancé I have finally succumbed. Actually, it was the veiled threat that us getting married depends upon it.

Plus the free digibox and dish, and installation for £1.

I have sold my soul to the devil Rupert Murdoch.

Obviously, I'm only getting it for the intellectual channels. And the opportunity to watch Manchester United live without going down the pub.

And I need to get a new TV.

So maybe after Friday there will be a blogging go-slow.

Goddammit, I have held out for years on my proud boast that I only get four-and-a-half channels, all analogue, and not very well, being that I live in a reception blackspot. And my TV was 'refurbished' when I got it in 1995.

I don't even watch bloody TV.

I suppose I'll have to get one with a DVD player.

It is truly the work of the devil.

PS I also have to get a TV that has a depth of less than 43cm, or 17 inch. I'm sorely tempted by plasma, but, considering I don't watch TV, I'm not sure that £3,000 is the correct amount to spend...