I was a bit stuck as to what to have for my tea tonight, so perused my cupboards and fridge for inspiration:

Sausages, mouldy mushrooms, piece of parmesan cheese, half a packet of reduced fat grated plastic cheese, celery, months old potatoes, older parsnips, carrots.

Having worked myself up to have braised sausages with crushed old new potatoes, it just seemed too much effort (bung some sausages in the oven with onions and a bit of stock, boil some potatoes, I know). I went for the easier option of nachos.

I have hit rock bottom.

With some degree of self-loathing, I switched the oven on an layered the corn snacks with salsa and a jar of pickled jalapeños then topped with the plastic cheese. After twenty minutes in the oven, my hearty snack was ready, after a further four minutes the hearty snack was giving me heartburn.

My love of spicy food is bound to contribute to my downfall one day, but the pleasure/pain high is hard to beat.

Obsessive compulsive cleaners
This TV programme is genius: pair somebody who is obsessively compulsively clean against a filthy scumbag and try to let the OC cleaner sort the scumbag’s house out for them.

Having come from a household where my dad refuses to throw anything away, I can’t stand clutter. I do still have a terrible habit of keeping things just in case, for example clothes that I keep just in case I ever lose three stones in weight, but generally, I chuck stuff out. I also love to keep my home clean and tidy, but although dust depresses me, I can tolerate it to a certain degree.

My house wouldn’t pass muster with the volunteer CC cleaners, but I’m normal.

The thing that amazes me about the filthy scumbags is that they know their houses are full of shit (quite literally in some cases), that they’ve not been cleaned in over ten years in some cases, and that they want help to change things, but they are so resistant to letting people help them.

Amanda is a nature loving pagan who hasn’t cleaned her house in twelve years. She collects stones and twigs when she’s out and about. Her friends won’t visit her. Cheyza’s cleaning amounts to four months a year. You just know from the outset that this is going to be bad, but so bad that it’s brilliant. It also becomes apparent that Amanda’s friends don’t want to visit her because she’s a fucking crackpot who needs a kick up the bum with an open toed sandal. “No, you can’t throw that used tissue away, it’s a life!”.

Of course, some of the best scraps are between the cleaners themselves when they insist that their own methods for cleaning are better than the others’.

I think the natural evolution for this televisual delight is to have everybody thrown into a house together for a year. Cleaning products would be rationed, or earned through the group performing tasks, such as the dirties having to make their bed every day. There’d be a scrap within the first ten minutes.

Bed
Fatigue has taken over somewhat this week, hit my poor ageing body quite badly. The bonus to this is that I’m perfectly justified in coming to bed at 9pm. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m asleep any earlier than usual, but it saves me from smoking an extra couple of fags and from searching for something that might be worth watching in the usually crap 9pm telly slot.

So hooray for my bed, hooray for me not having a TV in the bedroom, hooray that I’m not one of those filthy bastards who only changes their bedding four times a year.