What better way to start your 31st birthday than with a nice bit of house-breaking.
About half-two this morning we got woken up by a pretty heavy scene outside our window. Hayley, the girl downstairs, and some mates were outside trying to get in. Her bag had been nicked in a pub in Lewisham (buncha savages in this town…) Poor girl was distraught. In her bag were all her cards, her phone (including phone book) and just about everything you need to deal with life in 2002…
so we spent a pleasant hour trying to break in. I’m sad to say that my lock picking skills really need honing. A really old, crap, badly installed Yale proved too much for me and my kit. The two guys in the group were very keen on the idea of kicking the door open….which surely would have worked…but the carpentry involved in rectifying matters would be a bit of a nightmare.
Eventually we put a ladder through the back window so that Haley and a friend could climb down and try one of the back windows.In the past a few of us successfully managed to get in through a window down there when we were looking to squat the place so it had to be possible. And it was. One of the guys, who looked way too big to be crwaling through tiny windows, crawled through a tiny window above the back door.. Good lad him.
You ever want to know how good your security is ? Try breaking in. You’ll be amazed.

People don’t understand why I don’t read my mail and experience confusion at the massive pile of the stuff in our hallway. Well here’s why:
It’s always bad news
Bills, letters from the bastards at the estate agents about rent increases/inspection,threatening letters from the bank/credit card companies…
Other than that we receive several tonnes a week of pizza menus and money-off vouchers from dire local Indian takeaways with the occasional advert from some church or other that, in an attempt to increase the size of their congregation, will be featuring a dodgy religous gimmick. My favourite gimmicks so far are:

• Use will be made of a large coloured chart!
• Come and receive the anointing with the Holy Olive Oil from Jerusalem

(Seriously!).

Anyway, yesterday we got a phone call. 9:30 saturday morning while I was indulging in a nice long bath. Michele, my wife, got the phone. The call went something like this:
Michele: Hello
Caller: Hello is Martin there
Michele: Who is this
Caller: It’s Michelle
Michele: Michelle who ?
Michelle: Its a personal call…
Michele: Well he’s not going to ring you back if he doesn’t know who you are.
Michelle: I’m from MBNA [credit card bastards].

This is a tactic of all debt collectors. They pretend to be a friend of the victim so that he or she answers the phone. In America this practice is also common, but thanks to the FDCPA it’s illegal.
She called back later and after offerring me several convenient and easy methods of payment, which I refused on account of not wanting to pay anything, I asked her to make a note on my file that said never to call me again ever… she wouldn’t. I asked why they hadn’t mentioned who they were on the initial call and she said ‘because of data protection’….oh fuck off.
Finally she tried to explain to me why they call people at home and I had to point out that I wasn’t interested, repeated that I won’t take kindly to any more calls and hung up.
Then I went down to the tower of mail in the hall and dug out the MBNA letters.

Included in the package of shit which they sent me along with my bill, notification of late payment charges and implicit threats was an envelope that I could use to send in my payment.Not pre-pay of course – they’re not a fucking charity…and to show what a caring, kind, ex-hippy, love-in type company they really are underneath the harsh spikey exterior, they have drawn some nice daffodils on the envelope.
“Hey man, we’re not all heavy bread-head’s here. Groove with us baby and we’ll all skip down to the meadows toegther and dig the nature scene man and maybe drop some tabs – just pay your fucking bill or we’ll send a couple of really nasty bastards round to nick your furniture man.”

Ho hum – the end of another week.
This week:

• Anti-fascists were outnumbered by fascist-scum on an NF march to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthay in Bermondsey.
• The French managed to totally bollocks-up the election by letting the FN get second-place with only three percent difference to the corrupt tories which knocked the left out of the picture… There are now posters in France saying “Vote for the crook not the Nazi”.
• Margaret Thatcher still isn’t dead! – come on Ma’am, pop your clogs, there’s a good wicked-old-bag.

But It’s my birthday on sunday and excuse to spend some money on a nice meal out with my wife. So thats all right then.

Well, time to go up the pub, burn some brain-cells and some cash and generally forget how many wankers there are in the world.

Estate Agents now occupy pole position in the race to have their backs thrown against the wall when the revolution comes.
My wife had a bad day on monday this week;lots of upsetting things happenned but the thing that sticks out in both of our minds was a call from the bastards who manage the flat we rent.
“Your landlady wants to put the rent up by 30 quid…”
she was told. Bad news, especially as I’ve just managed to save 20 quid a month on ADSL but at least it could have been worse – we could be getting turfed out. The bit that stuck in our craws was coming next:
“…which I think is reasonable.”
Oh do you ? Well perhaps you’d like to pay it for us ?
Does she really think we want to know her opinion on this matter or any matter at all come to that ? Thanks, but when I want your advice I’ll be going insane.

Her justification for the assertion that a 30 quid increase in rent was a bargain was that now most flats in this area would be rented for much, much more than we pay. Why is that I wonder ?
It’s because the bastard estate agents have made it that way. Damn when we moved in here I thought the rent was extortionate. Now you can’t get a 1-bedroom toilet in Lewisham (not exactly Beverly Hills) for that rate and everyone just accepts this! People think that it’s just a normal part of life. It isn’t, it’s purely about greedy people, especially estate agents who encourage greed in others thus making the world a crappier place.

Roll up, Roll up for the crappest show on earth!

• You queued for an hour for major disappointment at the millenium dome.
• You queued for two hours to get your passport renewed while the passport office was hopelessly trying to implement a really ropey computer system
• You travelled to London from Yorkshire to place a bunch of flowers in a pile outside the house of an over-privileged sloan who drove into a wall whilst pissed on very expensive champagne

NOW! there’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to queue for 3 miles and 6 hours to see a coffin containing the dead body of a very old, over-privileged parasite! Be there or be the subject of hypocritical journalism by a load of tabloid scum who are sitting in the pub.

Enough about the dear old Queen Muvva (Gawd Blessah).

It’s been a good week, considering. The sun has been shining, the e-mail upgrade that kept me awake for several days doesn’t seem to have gone too badly and with some unofficial TOIL I’ve managed to sit in the Beautiful Hobgoblin garden, eating cheese and biscuits, drinking red wine and talking bologs with some nice people. That is what life is about.

Brodie has also fired up the barbeque and consequently I’ve eaten my year’s meat quota in one day. Joy.

The queen mum’s rotting corpse has been moved to St. James’ Palace. This is news.
A prayer was said in which God was asked to “shine eternal life” on her. Bit late now that she’s dead I would of thought, but it’s a nice gesture anyway.
God’s clever enough to know that what they actually mean is “please send her to heaven for eternity rather than hell”.
In fact, God’s clever enough to know that all of her friends and family wished that for her anyway. But God likes to be asked nicely.

You see, God’s a bit of a cunt. Despite being omniscient, he won’t help you unless you ask him nicely. Sometimes, even if you ask him nicely, he still won’t help if he thinks you aren’t praising his Glory enough.

And why should he ?

After all, he caused the problems in the first place. He created us and gave us freedom of choice so that we could make mistakes and even defy him. Only the truly good people would follow regardless. Thus he rewards them.

God created cancer you know. Don’t worry, its just a test of faith. If you or a loved one develops cancer then all you need to do is pray for them. God might take pity on the ill and make them better if you pray enough. If you don’t pray well then FUCK YOU God wants you dead. As I said, he’s a bit of a cunt really. He could use his powers for making the world a nice place, but he’d rather play his stupid, childish, egoboosting, mean little fucking games. He knows all, and thus more than us. But, like a nasty little schoolboy who likes to throws stones at ducks, pull the legs off spiders and generally torture dumb animals, God likes to play with us.

According to the hardcore creationists the world is only thousands of years old. The dinosaur bones we find are merely put there by God as a test of faith. As Bill Hicks said “you mean, God’s just fucking with our heads ?”. Yup. As I said, God’s a bit of a cunt.

Bored ? Naaaah.
Well… yes. That’s why I burned some valuable minutes of my life playing with javascript in an attempt to make a link that would send you to the current date and time on digiguide.
Here is the link. Bookmark it if you like telly.

Nice day so far. Last day of the easter holidays and I’ve watched both Sweeney films, listened to some rather groovy african funk and generally relaxed for the first time in weeks.
What about the rest of the day ? Might pop down the road and buy some wine.
Might not. Might read some more of Round Ireland with a fridge. Might not. Might have another shit…
What joy to have nothing more pressing to do.

Bologs
Much like a blog, but with more opinionated ranting.
Well…every other fuckers got one…

Everyone should put their lives on the web – it would create a more understaning world and global harmony…or something.