Or whatever…

A couple of years and a bit ago, there was a song in the charts by the Irish group The Script called The man who can’t be moved.  The singer told the sorry tale of breaking up with his girlfriend and, hoping that one day she’d change her mind and want to find him, he’d be there on the corner where they used to meet.

Awwww, what a sentiment.

Shortly after, they followed this sorry tale up with Break even; a song about a bloke being dumped by his girlfriend “I’m still alive, but I’m barely breathing…. I got time while she’s got freedom… when a heart breaks, it don’t break even”. 

Well, he was still hurting, obviously.  As I was at the time – things were still terribly painful for me after my own horrible break up and no, when a heart breaks, it don’t break even.  Not when your ex other half is a complete twat who dumps you for somebody else then rubs your face in it while you’re still sharing a house. 

But two years on, during which time I eventually got myself back on track and met somebody wonderful and found myself happier than I’ve ever been, Mr The Script is STILL going on about breaking up with his girlfriend… for fuck’s sake.

Talk you down (2009) – yep, she’s breaking up with him still

Before the worst (2009) – still trying to persuade her not to break up with him

For the first time (2010) – now they’re drunk, and wondering whether they can make it work

Nothing (2010) – his mates take him for a drink because he’s broken up with his girlfriend, he gets pissed and starts shouting around the streets, trying to persuade her to take him back

Now, Mr Script, can I suggest something to you?  She doesn’t want you.  I could’ve told you this in 2008 because, after a few weeks of begging somebody to change their mind, you actually know in your heart of hearts that you lost them as soon as they took somebody else’s phone number.  Just move on.  Get some counselling.  Have a rebound shag.  But move on, she doesn’t want you.

I think Mr The Script should listen to some B52s, turn his hand to writing songs about out of control parties, shopping malls, sea creatures and the like.

Misery
I wouldn’t say that I’m feeling miserable as such, just a little fed up.  There’s nothing to make you feel quite so alone as when you’re left to wonder why there’s a tree in your dining room; we got the Christmas tree at the weekend and Ali decorated it beautifully.  I recalled crushing one of the LED Christmas lights last year after noticing that a few of the diodes remained unlit.  But with just me being here, with me being on my own here for the next few weeks, I can’t help think it’s a bit odd to have a tree where Deirdre the sideboard should be.

Winter isn’t treating me well this year.  The darkness that descended in September has had an usually adverse effect on my mood; I am constantly tired and achy.  And it’s fucking freezing. But at least I have an electric blanket.  And the love of a wonderful woman and a smelly little dog.

At least I don’t make a wanky Christmas card out of these shots

Fuck, my dining room has turned into Narnia!

I might be a bit miserable because of weekly separation from the person I want to be with, but at least I have her.  I count myself very lucky every day.

Now, I wonder if I can attack the little dog’s dew claw while he’s sleeping….

I bought a washing mashine in the middle of October 2009.  It wasn’t the one I wanted, the one I wanted couldn’t be sourced for weeks, so I was offered a Whirlpool one for the same price – brilliant! It’s quite fancy, it has a big drum, lots of cycles, it’s sleek, it’s black, it’s sexy …. it’s broken.  Twelve months and three weeks after buying it (ok, thirteen months), the digital display died on me, so without being able to see what settings I’m using, doing my laundry has become a game of Russian Roulette (some might say they’d assumed this had been the case all my adult life).

Did I take out the extended warranty at £xx per year?  For a £500 washing machine?  Surely with an expected lifetime for a washing machine of 7 years, you’d expect it to last more than four years before anything went wrong on it?  So no, I didn’t, the robbing fuckers.  Are they domestic appliance manufacturers or insurance agents?  Or just twats?

I e-mailed them last week:

Message: I purchased this washing machine in mid October 2009. I ran a load earlier, and when the cycle had finished, the digital display was showing in green, but the numbers were not showing properly. On further investigation, there is no temperature display at all, the time display is very distorted and the spin speed indicator is barely legible. While I realise that this machine is possibly a whopping 2 or so weeks out of warranty, after just a year of low to moderate use (I live on my own), I wouldn’t expect a well-maintained, £450 appliance to start showing signs of malfunction after this period of time and nor would anybody else. This is clearly a fault with the machine and I would like it to be repaired, can this be arranged please? Many thanks. Sniffy.

Their response today: 

Dear Dr Sniffy,

Thank you for your email.

Whirlpool is the number one white goods manufacturer in Europe and our appliances are made to the highest standards. They enjoy a world-wide reputation for reliability and durability but of course any appliance that has functional parts or electronic components can fail at any given point resulting in repairs being required.

As a safeguard against unexpected and sometimes expensive repairs after the initial warranty period has expired Whirlpool offer both extended service and parts cover at prices that are competitive with other major manufacturers. These contracts are considered a wise investment by many of our customers.

Whilst I can sympathise with your disappointment that this repair is required unfortunately in the absence of any warranty this would be fully chargeable. I understand this may not be the response for which you had hoped but I apologise nevertheless for any inconvenience caused.

Kind regards

Whirlpool UK, C.U.N.T.Y.

And my response to them: 

Dear Whirlpool Cuntstomer Service,

Thanks for your response.  Disappointngly, it was as expected, which is quite frankly disgraceful and an admission that Whirlpool doesn’t expect its products to last for any decent length of time or care when they don’t (in this case, three weeks out of its warranty period – THREE weeks).  Consequently, it effectively blackmails its consumers with overpriced insurance policies to cover for its products’ shortcomings.

I can confirm that I will not be buying any Whirlpool products in the future and I will make strong recommendations to anybody I have contact with that they avoid Whirlpool like the plague. I will be starting with the shop I bought the machine from so they can inform their customers about the fault with these machines and Whirlpool’s attitude when alerted to them.  In fact, the only reason I ended up with a Whirlpool was because there was a pan-European delay on the Hotpoint (how I wish I’d have waited). 

With all due respect,

Sniffy

So to all you people thinking of buying an appliance – don’t bother with Whirlpool

And this is just the start.  I shall soon be waving the Sale of Goods Act at them, with reference to the section on durability.

Why can’t these idiots realise how word of mouth from satisfied customers is their most effective way of advertising?

Contrast my sister, Bomb’s experience with Bosch when her lawnmower blew up, way out of warranty.  They were so embarrassed that they were really apologetic and gave her a replacement free of charge.  That’s the Germans for you.

And do you know that Bosch tumbledryers have a light inside the drum?  They do.  Fabulous.

Exciting times lie ahead for me.  The house purchase will complete this Friday and I can look forward to being in phenomenal amounts of debt for 25 years, rather than just moderate amounts of debt for the rest of my life.  But you have to see the positive side of things – it’s a long term investment that will keep me in incontinence pads and Bepanthen in my old age.  And the mortgage will cost a less than the rent.

And, what you can do when a place is your own is DECORATE.  I could’ve decorated this place as a tenant, but why waste money on Farrow and Ball for future tenants who would probably only appreciate huge floral patterns… in black?  The spectrum of colour options is limited to “neutral” and, as far as I’m concerned, nobody ever went on the rampage after painting their home natural hessian. 

Actually, some of these look a wee bit pink for my liking, but my niece will love them.  She cried her eyes out when I told her she could help paint the house, but that we weren’t having pink.

There’s a word for that – spoilt.

Anyway (:@), I’m looking forward to all sorts of fabulous trips out to stores where I want to kill people – Ikea being the main one.  That awful procession, following arrows, being run into by people displaying no control over their prams (or children).  And there are always so many Scousers.

Wherever you go, there are Scousers; be it Manchester City Centre or the Trafford Centre, concerts at the MEN Arena, theme parks, Ikea in Warrington, Ikea in Ashton.  And yet they all profess to love Liverpool so much… why the fuck don’t they stay there then?

But yes, the house is a kind of blank canvass of beige, which is great, but making it a home will require some thought, design sense and money; none of which I have.  I guess we’re lucky in that my landlord is happy to come and do bits of joinery for us at cost price… but now I kick myself for not getting him to do it for free while I was a tenant.

Ali wants an airing cupboard and I’ve told her – you don’t need an airing cupboard when you’ve got Jesus, but she’s having none of it.

Rocky wants carpet instead of laminate flooring.

I’m just happy to have a home that will be a foundation for many happy years of mutual debt for me and my other half.

Exploding sinuses
I woke up to throbbing swollen glands in my neck and pain in my face, ear and teeth. Sinus infections are hideous, but they’re also rather fabulous in what they can offer once your immune system has done its thing: that wonderful gloopy, bloody snot that can only be expelled by what feels like blowing out from the behind your eyeballs.

My last great sinus infection resulted in probably the best snot clearance I’ve ever had.  I actually think it was an undiagnosed siamese twin – it was about an inch and half in length, with its own blood supply, nervous system and pulse.  I disposed of it carefully, but it escaped and became leader of the Labour party.  Apparently it outshone all the other candidates, especially in the eyes of the unions who recognised its ability to empathise with public sector employees and generally get up everyone’s noses.

Fantastic imagery and incongruous juxtapositions.

Any word with juxtaposition as part of its definition is top notch in my book.

Of course, another sort of meaning of phantasmagorical is surreal, and I suppose you’d describe Salford City Council’s raison d’etre as being to make all those who encounter them shake their heads in wonder while muttering, “phantastmagorical!”, or “that’s totally fucked up”.

This not-so-great metropolis’s latest totally and utterly unbelievable fucked up plan is to take the A6, a major three-lane road that runs into and out of Manchester City Centre, reduce the capacity to one lane plus a bus lane and, along with this, reduce the speed limit from 40mph to 20mph.  That’s nice of them, vastly increasing journey times, pollution and tempers.

Why do they have to do this?  What good could possibly come of this?  Why can’t they just do something to make peoples’ lives a little bit easier instead of totally fucking miserable?

Because they’re a bunch of left winged, money-wasting morons is what I’m guessing.

Useless, waste of space cunts.

The power of Google
Anyway (:@,), hopefully they’ll Google themselves when they’re not too busy sat around on their fat arses, thinking of other phantasmagorical schemes for making people who visit the city, or even worse live there, think they were on mind-bending drugs.

And back to Google – they’ve decided at last that the Taz and Pig hosted version of Sniffytastic wasn’t a danger to peoples’ PCs afterall.  Idiots.  Anyway, I’ve farted around enough now, so I’m sticking with Blogger.

Will I am
I need to write a will sometime quite soon.  How exciting is that?  Essentially, my other half would get the house (she’ll be thrilled at being saddled with £95,000 debt) and everything in it (she’ll be even more thrilled at getting my collection of “I’m sure this is useful for something” things and, of course, the little dog).

I’m tempted to insist on something wonderful in my will, since I’m paying for it and all, but I can’t think of what.  Strange funeral requests are no good because the whole concept goes against my beliefs, although it would be grand if everybody arrived on a penny farthing at my behest.

Fanta-smagorical
My sister, Bomb, took part in the filming of a TV quiz show in September.  I had to go with her and I will also appear on the telly when the episode is screened.  How did I get dragged into an overnight stay in the grottiest hotel in Glasgow, losing my identity to become known as “Bomb’s sister” and being filmed for national TV without any chance of a share in a potential cash prize of £100,000?  What’s more, I didn’t even get to meet Dale Winton!

Waxy

It’s been such a while since I did the whole blog thing; I’m not sure I have it in me any more.  But I still experience things, I still have opinions (so many opinions) and, before I started trying to type this, I thought I could still write.

Life sometime throws things at you from left field that take you completely unawares.  When I was going through counselling a couple of years back, I was once presented with this scenario: “You’re on a boat and the waters have been calm for days, since you started your trip.  You bob along and all is well, then a storm hits and the boat gets tossed around on the sea.  What do you do?”  Well, you have to change, you’re no longer in your comfort zone and you have to adjust and do things you’ve never had to do before.  I’m still appallingly bad at this, but I have recently been witness to one of my friends encountering one utterly hideous thing after another: unimaginable heartbreak, confusion, loss, despair – his world collapsed in the space of a fortnight.  He could have fallen apart, he could have given in, but he didn’t, and I have never felt so much pride and respect for one person as I do for him.  Martin, you are amazing.

Skiing?  You?
Yes, I’m learning to ski.  With a holiday booked in a bespoke ski chalet in France in January, I’m GOING to fucking ski!

It’s hard to describe the whole process.  Anybody who has learned to drive will understand: the whole thing is totally alien to you; your ankles are locked into position in rigid boots, feet are strapped to 5 foot bits of fibreglass, and you’re expected to shuffle about on snow – to enjoy sliding on it, when all your life you have navigated to the stuff with super-grip souls, terrified of slipping. 

So you learn how to side step up a snowy slope, to hold a position there – knees leaning up the slope, skis slightly on their edges.  Knees are NOT suppose to bend this way, the joints don’t allow it, but you persevere so as not to start some hideous domino slide with your classmates. 

And then comes the standing at the top of a slope, trying to hold position without sliding down.  What the fuck?  No.  Again, this is just wrong – knees are not supposed to do this.  But you smile at the instructor and then try to “roll the knees out” to start moving, which you don’t.  What do you mean, “just roll the knees out”?  I’m doing that, nothing’s  ha……..!!!!

And so the snowplough comes in really handy.

I’m at the stage where I can get up a slope, stand at the top, and get to the bottom without much incident.  I can’t turn though.  No matter how hard I try, something stops the “feet, point in that direction!” signal transmitting through to the tips of the skis.

Like driving, I can see this being a long and arduous process.  But I’ll get there in the end.

House
We’re buying my house.  It’s fantastic.  I’m so excited.  This time, it’s going to be fantastic.


So, despite life throwing me that wicked curveball on the high seas a few years back, despite me thinking that the sun would never shine, that I’d never be happy again, all those people, but especially my dear Piggy, proved me so very wrong.