Ooops

I should remember to keep things simple.  The only bits I know about technology are through trial and error and through having somebody on hand to repair the damage when I mess things up.  In the absence of my sorely-missed 24hr tech support guru, I should know not to mess.

I messed.

I fucked up the old blog (you can try the link, but I assure you, it’s fucked).

Ah well.

But fuck.  FUCK!  BIG, MASSIVE FUCK!

Why do I have to mess?  What can’t I be one of these people who lives within the limits of their intellectual capabilities, one who knows to leave well alone?

Because I’m a dick.

Anyway (;@) what’s done is done.  Move on.

Twitter
I’ve been trying twitter this week.  I don’t get it. Admittedly, I’ve been contributing to this blog for years now, but I didn’t start out with any expectation that anybody would read it.  People did, and it was flattering when folk left comments, and fun when people from Stornoway started arguments with me in their funny little illiterate Bebo-esque way, but I always write things here as a bit of fun; it gives me the opportunity to digest my thoughts and reflect on my experiences instead of reacting and going on the rampage.

But Twitter?  It’s for people who expect an audience – like a text message to the world in the expectation that all who care to know the most mundane things about our existence, like where we are on the Bristol Stool Form Guide on any particular day.

It’s not that different to this I suppose, only for the illiterate.  And I just don’t get it.

Christmas
Christmas approaches, it has been doing for the past six weeks I suppose, but the TV adverts are telling us to panic buy in readiness for the supermarkets being closed for two days RIGHT NOW!  This year, I’m going to be enjoying the true spirit of the season – time with loved ones and family being highest on my priority list.  This is mainly because I’m skint and I can’t afford to buy any presents, but I don’t expect to receive any either.

The thorny issue of where I’m spending Christmas has already been resolved, and I’m happy that the solution doesn’t involve me eating two Christmas dinners, but I do get to wake up on Christmas morning with my beautiful girlfriend.

Compromise is something you only need between the ages of 15 and 80 – outside these limits and you’re justified in telling everyone else to go fuck ’emselves.

Anyway…. ;@)

So it came to pass that I became a homeowner on the 29th October.  It’s all a bit weird since, apart from a letter from my solicitor telling me that the business was completed on 29th October (and a big hole in my current account), there’s nothing here to say that it’s ours (mine, but ours).

Nothing apart from a new toilet seat* and a pile of aspirational magazines that display wonderful homes that one can only ever, well, aspire to. But the homes in these magazines aren’t real, not for people who can’t even afford an average-priced house; they’re beyond aspirational and drift into other-worldly.  After having discussions about wallpaper emblazoned with bold patterns, it was interesting to note that the homes featured in Homos in their Gardens, Period House, Cunty Living and the like, they don’t have wallpaper, they’re just plain with pictures and soft furnishings to add colour to a living space (“living space”, for fuck’s sake).  Nice houses don’t have bold wallpaper and feature walls, oh no, this is the reserve of the Horror Houses that you see on Rightmove in the £95,000-£120,000 bracket. I have seen them ALL.

In addition to starting a new line in designer toilet seats, I’m going to start a monthly periodical (how can anybody not laugh at that?) that features real homes, decorated by normal people with decent taste, on a moderate budget.  The sorts of folk who get their kitchens and decorating materials from B&Q and their furniture and soft furnishings from M&S (or even the never knowingly undersold shop).  I’d also produce a monthly magazine digest of the worst homes currently showing on Rightmove…. like THIS horror in Glossop, or this bugger not far from here.

There is no problem with falling house prices, people are just trying to sell rubbish homes.

*One thing struck me on the day that I moved in to this place last year: the flimsiness of the toilet seat.  I know I don’t have the most delicate of derrières, but even so, the original B&Q toilet seat on the B&Q cheapo toilet was beyond a joke and was the first thing to be replaced once we had hold of the keys (metaphorically speaking).  Needless to say, we shunned the opportunity of going for the £60 soft-close variety and went for a bog-standard, yet solid little number that will hopefully provide many hours and years of comfortable toilet visits.  I’m sure there’s a market out there for designer toilet seat embellished with images from the Bristol Stool Form Scale.  I could make millions from it!

A special day
Friends and loved ones will gather on Wednesday to say their farewells and celebrate John McCusker.  A man who left himself somewhere else and became known and very much loved as cute wee John Pigster, or Piggy.  There will be tears, but there will be colour and hopefully lots of smiles once the tension and sadness of his funeral has passed.

His death was tragic, his life cut short so unexpectedly, he will be missed terribly, but he will live on eternally in the fond memories of those who came to love him.

The cunt.