Landlady.
After several days our previous landlady has been in touch with the bastards at the estate agents.Michele was surprised to hear she was unhappy with the state of the flat.I wasn’t.I look forward to her claim out of our deposit. We have already started planning the court case confident in the knowledge that we will win. Fuck you Camilla Fidelia Woollf (her real name) – I can only assume she is from aristocracy who have hit hard times….good. See you in court 🙂

The last blog was actually last night,but I only just got round to submitting it. Curse the space-bar on this keyboard – it needs at least 200 psi before it acknowledges being pressed.

Tonight was nice. A couple of pints of Guiness with Ian after work and then some wine back at our new flat. Humph wasso sweet and I suspect has a soft spot for Ian. Later on after Ian had left he decided to nest in my hair while I was at the computer.What an honour!

Again – time for bed. Happy birthday Ralph! Greetings to you all – especially Helen and Mike!

It’s been a while I know. But there are reasons. Firstly we didn’t have IP until very recently (it was hell).Secondly I have been through a very, very low period. There are many reasons for this that I don’t intend to go into but now we are in our new flat,things are beginning to look more normal.
Thirdly, I have actually written stuff but it’s a bit depressing and, to be honest, scares me when I read it.

So – starting afresh.

Had a birthday and it passed very quickly (thank god); I was asleep by 7pm.The Absinth I rejected turned up in a plastic glass, shoved between our window bars (basement flat in New Cross remember) with the words “you cannot escape the green goblin” scrawled on the side in eyeliner. I still have it, and how thanful I am that my brain was together enough to reject it at the time- despite allowing a tequila first…

BTW- there’s a mini supermarket along from New Cross station that sold me a tiramisu for 1.59 (UKP) that morning. Not only did this make a decent gift for the other Warmington slaves (a birthday tradition), but it was also one of the best Tiramisus I’ve ever tasted – second only to Tree’s, although in fairness hers was several orders of magnitude better…

Loads of other stuff went on recently that have provoked an emotional response, but I’ll discuss them later:

• Reading “The Funny Times” and realising that there are Americans out there who, rightly, feel more irritated with Wanker than anyone outside the country
• Seeing the predictible pictures of US and UK soldiers abusing Iraqis in a way that probably makes Saddam proud (P.S. despite what you might think, I don’t blame the soldiers….a topic for another time)
• The Space-bar going on this keyboard
• Blunkett storming ahead with the nextmove toward a police state

Goodnight

I can’t begin to describe how upset, sad, uptight and angry I feel about this move. Tomorrow is the big day and we’re almost ready….but not quite. I don’t want to move, especially not into Goldsmiths. It seems such a bad, retrograde step – despite the limited financial benefits. We’ve been planning to move to America for so long now, and moving into Surrey bloody House just doesn’t cut the mustard. We know it’s not permanant and so all the effort, sweat and panic, we know will happen again in the not too distant future. Horrible feeling.

So here we are, half-heartedly putting everything we can see into the nearest box (we’re way past trying to make the boxing logical). I know we’re about to be without ADSL for at least a fortnight and so blogging is going to be difficult. Shutting down “teapot” and packing he amp and speakers really made me feel unhappy. No music, and no broadband….I’d rather be without water. No I wouldn’t, I love water. But it’s still a scary thought. Oh well – atleat this lovely iBook + a crap 3com AP and a DSL modem can keep me happy for tonight…

Humph is totally confused by the whole deal – poor little sod. He has been so affectionate recently. He’s been spending most of his time outside the cage and sitting on us. He feels comfortable enough to sit on our shoulders these days which is an indescribable feeling. He just wants to be part of the flock.

Anyay, we’re spending 250 quid (we don’t own) on a removals firm tomorrow so hopefully they’ll sort us out and make life much easier.

Well of course, the letter I had been expecting has now arrived. From the landlady, preparing us for her trying to screw us out of our deposit. Apparently, part of the reason for her wanting us out was because we weren’t keeping the place in order…and she quoted the relevant part of the contract. However, we happen to know this is bollocks.
Firstly, she wants to sell the place. Secondly, we know she is planning some serious structural work. Thirdly she visited the place personally a year ago and has happily let us stay until now.

So – even if we vandalised the place (which we haven’t…yet), it wouldn’t matter because she’s planning to rip the joint apart. Her crappy effort at parquet flooring will have to be redone at least if she’s serious about selling the place.

No, we know what’s really going on. The row I had with Nora Batty’s mother-in-law, Sam, at the estate agents. She has clearly decided to try and dump us in it. Dogfaced, belligerent, loathsome, unpleasant, anhydrous, ungratified, dreary BITCH that, we believe, she is.

As you’d expect, I lost it when I read the letter. But I now realise that whatever happens we win. We don’t need the deposit for the new flat – obviously we need it for the normal debt reasons, but not for the new place. We will also win if we can be arsed taking it to court..because we are in the right; the place will be cleaner when we move out than it was when we moved in. Also, as tenants with a “periodic tenancy” we have fucking loads of rights. I might even demand all info Oak-lets have on us under the data protection act and then sue them for libel. Ahh, wouldn’t it be nice to have a go at using the law…I’m also slowly going bonkers and so care less than I ought about the practicalities of what I’m suggesting. I’d take months of work for this.

Last night, after a pleasant drink in the Rosey (Dave, Ian, Dan, Zap, Heather, Llynos, Paula, Pred etc) in the lovely new cross sunset, I got home, and sampled some of the the good doctor’s wares. Once Michele was satisfied that I was good and satisfied, she showed me the letter. I didn’t sleep. There’s this odd thing going on with my stomach – it feels like a family of birds are nesting there. My hair is also going grey. The night daemons explained to me in clear, rational, terms about how my debts work, how house moving works and how we’ll never be able to box everything up in time, and how we’re going to end up in the shit as a result of the landlady. I was also hungover. Even a couple of Anadin and several tapes of Jack Dee and Jeremy Hardy didn’t help. At 8:30 I started listening to radio 4. Funny how people like Jim Naughtie, John Humphries and Charlotte Green can seem like family. At 9am John Peel kicked-off his usual round of human-interest whimsey…and I love it. After stories about fatal anorexia, and then a mad woman who likes polkadots, came an ex-celebrity chef who is now homeless. This really woke me up and made me love her. She was fed up with moving house, due to landlords being landlords, so she now lives out of a suitcase with all her gear in storage. It was exactly what I wanted to hear, and inspired me to write to the programme in an attempt to get the malfeasance out of my head. It worked.

We spent the day boxing shit up and chucking shit out. One of the kids from down the road asked me what I was chucking out, and when I told him we were moving out he went and got his brother. He rushed over and told me and Michele it was a “shame” we were moving. Even though he’s only 8 years old I think he really likes Michele. It really made me realise how much I love this road, and how much I don’t want to leave it. This is the first road I’ve ever lived on that made me feel at home…
The flat itself can get stuffed however…

Iraq is surely Free(tm) now that it has Freedom Radio(R). Yes several hours a day of US establishment approved unthreatening sounds, including lots of RRRRRRRock with a small R. The Channel 4 special was quite astounding. On the Beeb we’re used to seeing films that are critical of the U.S. regime in Iraq. Many people choose to see this as evidence that the BBC is biased, without realising that in fact it’s evidence to the contrary. The BBC isn’t owned by Murdoch, Turner or any of the other over-rich bastards with financial interests in the ‘news’ they present. However, now that Bush is truly in the shit in his own country, the more conservative (small ‘c’) news gatherers are feeling more comfortable with broadcasting objective reports.
The groovy “FREEDOM(C) RADIO” DJ in her dress-down-friday style military uniform grinned as she extolled the virtues of having a truly FREE(P) station…just before she told us how she couldn’t play whetever she liked because the “higher authorities” decided what should be played….Doesn’t sounds very “FREE” to me. I imagine they don’t have too many phone ins then. But rest assured that Rockin’ Rumsfeld will have sorted out some of the deffest trax for the newly liberated Iraqis and occupying troops to funk to…only there’s no Country and Western, and no Hip-Hop. I’m sure all of the troops apprciate that. You can’t be free if you can choose to listen to EVIL music like that, that challenges the freedom all Americans and Brits have to sit down and shut the fuck up and just do what they’re fucking told by their government…

Yeah ok – enough. Still moving house, it’s still looking impossible only now we have an extra 50 carboard boxes we’re not touching while we worry about how much there is to do. This is how we spent our Easter. Because we’re atheists, God in his forgiving compassion, gave Michele a right shitty virus with which she is still suffering. He’s saving mine up until we actually move. Note to self – must remember to pray otherwise he won’t lift a bloody finger.

Other things I did over easter:

• See Andy and discuss making loads of money by doing groovy stuff…I’m ever the optimist as you know
• Watch “Jersey Girl”, “Spellbound”, “American Chai” and a load of “Chapelle’s Show”; the later was the first US comedy show for years to make me laugh out loud – go and watch it.
• Watch some borrowed DVDs (The Sweeney and Spaced)

That sort of thing.

Apparently, moving house is one of the most stressful experiences you can suffer. I believe it; we’ve got 2 weeks to go and I’m already teetering on breaking point… The place is a real mess, and I mean far, far worse than usual. We did a day of boxing. We, in this case, refers to me and Tina, who, in a moment of madness, offered to come round and act as moving consultant. Michele spent the day in bed with a hangover. It got the ball rolling but procrastination soon halted it and now it’s almost rolling backwards.
Estate agents really couldn’t imagine how much hate one person, i.e. me, could have for them all. Just walking past the places increases my heart rate and my fists clench. So I try not to ever engage in conversation with them, for fear of spitting blood into their faces.
Sam, the rancorous, rasping voiced, old harriden, from our estate agents was unfortunate enough to have me return a call she made to Michele. They don’t appreciate that as result of the call telling us the landlady wants to squeeze some cash out of our home, we are under real fucking stress. Perhaps they do. Perhaps that’s why she has been ringing regularly to fuck us about. Yesterday, Michele had taken enough and asked me to call them back. Inevitably it ended up with me being unable to contain my anger and telling them how much I hated her and the agency and how I hope we never have to communicate again. This is when the odious old bag used, what she thought was, her ammunition. In her officious, 60-a-day, gravelly drawl, she said:
“Well you say we’ve been bad, but the last time we had someone visit you they told me there was a huge parrot flying around the place.”

1. It’s not a huge parrot, it’s a small parakeet.
2. It wasn’t flying around
3. The landlady had personally seen the bird and told us she was fine about it.
4. SO FUCKING WHAT ?

I calmly explained the above points to her…and then really got angry…Just writing about this has started getting my blood pressure up so I’ll stop. Suffice to say that if they give us any shit whatsoever about the deposit, I will happily spend the entire deposit on dragging their sorry arses through the courts.
Off work for easter now and spent the day in a productive wa: watching a load of Sweeney DVDs let to me by a colleague. Humphrey has been very friendly recently and watched them with me whilst sitting on my shoulder, preening my hair. At about 4pm the laptop ran out of batteries and so I thought I sould embark on another bit of move preparation. I picked up the phone to call the council and cancel our council tax bill, and was redirected to BT- bollocks, they’ve cut us off. Before I could procede further, I was required to press about 28 buttons only to be told I couldn’t go any further without the reference number on my bill. We don’t have any bloody bills. So I had to dig through the assorted crap in the “important box” and managed to find one from 1998 (before 020 BTW). I called back, entered the magic code and was then put on hold for 15 minutes.

In Syria, where the CIA send their most difficult customers for some unorthadox interrogation, they use a special loop of bizarre music that, like in The IPCRESS File, sends the prisoner barking mad, until he will admit to anything.
BT use this same loop for their hold music. If Al Quaeda really wanted to cause total destruction in the UK, all they’d need to do is Hijack TV and Radio and play the BT hold music. Everyone in the country would instantly lose control and start destroying things.

So that was another 125 quid up my shirt. Great timing. If anyone out there has any reason to charge me some money, then give me a call (when the bloody phone is switched back on) and I’ll be only too happy to hear about it. In fact, even if I don’t owe you anything, just give me a call and I’ll send you a cheque, postal order or the shirt off my back.

Last night had one of the biggest turnouts ever:Ian, Dan, Rakesh, Sam + 1, Kate, Vic, Llynos, R2, Jon, Mark, Nedene, Lisa etc etc. It was probably great.

Slowly it all starts coming out to the mainstream media. Stuff that’s some of us have known about all along: How Iraq was going to get invaded even before 9/11, More evidence is coming to light from an ex-FBI official who is now claiming the government knew 9/11 was going to happen. Of course they knew. With the intelligence resources at their disposal, how could they not ? And when the FBI investigation started getting too close to the truth, sinister stuff started to happen.

Over time, probably years, it will all be exposed. And by then, no-one will care, because it was so long ago…

• Coming home from work and spending time with Michele and Humphrey who spent a long time on my lap. Little Sweetie
• A saisfactory result at work with a working RAID array, rewards for the rightous and revenge. A long story and again not bloggable.
• Rivoli Ballroom on TV
• A very generous work colleage who lent me the entire series 2 of the Sweeney on DVD including a load of really excellent special features. In fact I’ve just finished watching “chalk and cheese” which was brilliant. Genuinely clever, exciting, cynical and even moving. You may not know it, but The Sweeney changed the way modern television works. It is also DA BOMB MOFO!
• A new series of “New Tricks”, the pilot of which was superb…it also has Dennis Waterman as an ex-copper. Watch it!
• A plan to meet Alex on Saturday
• A good day at work – lots of problems resolved and a good Thai lunch at the Walpole (#28, no rice, plus-plus chilli)
• Tomorrow is Friday
• Nice chat with Kate and Vic this morning
• Sun, without being too hot
• Downloading some excellent stuff, including the Black Books I missed last week that no-one I know taped
• Falling for the Kestrel and Intel April Fools jokes…and laughing

Today was a good day (I didn’t even have to use my AK). Maybe it’s just in comparison to the last few days that were, and there’s no better way to describe them, shit. Sadly, despite being really bloody interesting, the topics involved are not bloggable. Pity, when you consider what blogs are all about. Anyway.

A bit of recent history. Last Thursday a few of us went for a curry in my favourite curry house. It’s not my favourite because the food is gourmet….or even because it’s good. It’s because they have been there 40 years, the people are nice and they are one of the only true “Indians” left now. Every other “Indian” has developed into a gastronomic emporium of tourist-friendly pretentiousness. Not this place. It’s pure after-pub joy. Admittedly my guts were shot afterwards and I spent the majority of the next 24 hours on the bog but that can be a very relaxing experience. After the curry I enthusiastically invited the assembled people back to our house for more entertainment….neglecting to explain that this “entertainment” involved laughing at me fast asleep on the rug, five minutes after getting home. Apparently a couple of the guests attempted to wake me by telling me “a drive has gone down in the RAID array”. Evidently I was soundly sleeping, otherwise I would have awoken and crapped my pants at the same time. In fact I’ve spent the majority of the last two days trying to nurse a RAID array back to health in the machine room….to no avail…so far anyway. Perhaps their subliminal suggesions explain some of my recent nightmares.

Back to today. Most of the morning was consumed by a meeting. Oddly, it was a really, really productive experience. Not only did we all tend to agree, but the chair was actually really good at chairing. This kept things moving and everyone awake. I know its sad, but the whole experience cheered me up and gave me some hope for the future of mankind 🙂

As I write, things appear to be pleasant, endurable and even…good. One thing that really cheered me up this week was last sunday at my parents.
My dad was relating his experiences of being in an Anderson shelter in WW2. Apart from being a fascinating story, an interesting family trait was unearthed during the story: apparently my dad used to regularly invite people back from the pub, and then fall asleep on the carpet leaving my mum to entertain them all. As Michele says “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”.