Now boarding "priority passengers"!

Yep! You guessed it. I was on holiday recently and have returned more than just a little pissed off about airline companies!

The trouble started when I thought that flying out of Dublin Airport would be a "good" idea. Ohh how wrong I was!

Having confirmed my departure details, I figured that all would be fine for the negotiation of Dublin airport. Task one was to go to Checkin area 14, which would in most cases mean that when in the vacinity of check-ins 1-13, that checkin 14 would be nearby! Nope, not in Dublin airport it isn't! Check-in 14 is on an entirely different floor altogether, if you didn't already know!
After negotiating that particular hurdle you then need to engage your skills as a cryptographer and negotiate the departure gates. Reason would dictate that the gates would be run in a sequence of A, B, C and D. Not in Dublin Airport. Somebody saw fit to mark the gates in a sequence of A, C, B, D. Not sure why, but clearly the mastermind behind that one was what society refers to as "Special".

After about 20 minutes of waiting at the departure date, the delightful lady with the nassal Irish brogue, announces over the tannoy, that "We are now boarding passengers with priority passses and young children". I know! Talk about a classic case of discrimination against the able-bodied! Aside from the blatant discrimination, some of the people have children that look like they just sat their GCSE exams!
Finally, the rest of us 2nd class citizens are told we can board the plane. Nice and easy, since we all have full use of our limbs and just want to get to where we are going. Once on board the plane the situation has become instantly apparent. Those priority passengers with young children that boarded before me, are now sitting as far away from their bastard children as possible. Quite simply this means that their hideous spawn are going to spend the next two hours, kicking the back of my chair, making as much noise as possible and doing their damnedest to piss me off!

I always wondered why people completely lose it on planes and try to open the doors in mid-air. Finally, I have managed to answer my own question. It has nothing to do with recycled air or anything technical like that, it is simply caused by the irritating off-spring of the people at the rear of the plane!

Anyway, I'm off! If you have any issues with the statements and outrageous claims within, let me know and I will be sure to send a response detailing why you should be beaten to death with a rubber hose!

Afternoon of the living dead!

I am starting to think that no stone is going to be left unturned in the quest to point out why everything seems to be spiralling into oblivion. It has reached a point where I am actually becoming annoyed at myself, if for no other reason, the individuals that bear the brunt of my hatred are quietly frankly extremely easy targets. I’m serious, there’s just no sport in it, but I suppose I will just have to resign myself to accepting that these things need pointing out.

The target of my loathing today is youths, or yoot, as I believe they now like to be called. The reason why they appeared on the radar is that they have this increasing propensity to look brain dead. If you are unfortunate enough to be walking through the city centre at the same time as the little cherubs, you probably won’t pay much attention to them. Look a little more closely however and you will start to get the feeling that you have just walked onto the set of every zombie film ever made. That’s not a simile that I reach for easily, as I find myself questioning whether zombies are more or less on the ball than youths.

If you happen to have the dubious pleasure of casual observance in the near future, you may wish to consider looking for the key features displayed by our brain dead under-generation. The eyes will be partially rolled back into the skull - giving the delightful impression of total disinterest - combined with subtle undertones of a pseudo-comatose demeanour. Watch even more closely and you will also notice that they have absolutely no purpose or particular direction of travel and will no doubt spend a number of hours drifting round town with no reason nor purpose.

Personally, I can only speculate that this is down to a combination of 24-hour television and games consoles, but perhaps they just aren’t getting smacked enough by their parentals. I would love to seem games consoles coming in kit form, which would at least mean that they would have to display some level of cognitive thought, before sinking back into the world of the brain dead.

As per usual, any comments, quips or gripes should be directed to the comments section. Alternatively, if you are one of the aforementioned yoot and have inexplicably taken the time to read this, then feel free to mash the keyboard with those chubby little cocktail sausages you like to call fingers.

The Peasants Stole My Taxes!

Sunny afternoons are great. Or at least they could be, if only Belfast’s very own inbred population of scumbags didn’t also think they were great.

Naturally, I am stuck in an office all day, with the only chance I have of enjoying the sun being a brief 30 minutes interlude at lunchtime. With the exception of the occasional rude interruption from something ”work” related, the remainder of my day is spent looking out of the window, with a strong sense of longing onto the street below.

There is an unexpected bonus that comes with my contract’s particular location. I have the dubious pleasure of a bird’s-eye view into one of Belfast’s less salubrious estates and if nothing else, it ensures that there is always a post midday flurry of activity taking place. Unfortunately, this also means that while I am busy earning money and funding the government’s coffers, there is a counter-culture* in which I am privy to at any time during the day. This inexplicably named “counter-culture” consists entirely of those that seem to have no jobs, and the sole purpose of providing me with a window of opportunity to watch them spend my taxes.

There just seems to be something about the warm and sunny days that raise my concerns about two things. Firstly, if these people are living on £40.00 per week, how can they afford to buy vast quantities of booze everyday? Additionally, I have noticed through my casual observances that the male population of the estate, appear to have no upper garments of clothing. This leads me to believe that they have been reduced to selling their clothing to buy alcohol for the duration of the 10-days of sun; more commonly known in Belfast as summer. However, with this theory now out in the open, the natural question then arises as to just how much does a 2nd hand Kappa t-shirt fetch on the open market?

The other behaviour that is entirely apparent, is the hordes of these young men who have developed a long-term emotional attachment to their genitalia. If you happen to have a spare 20 minutes in your day, you will be able to identify them as the ones who have both hands buried firmly in the crotch region; cradling the only remaining item of value left to them. Of course this could be another explanation as to the source of their income. Perhaps they are regular visitors to the sperm donation centre in the weeks and months preceding summer.

This just raises more question than answers. How much exactly does a sperm bank pay? And most importantly, just how great is the nurture to nature ratio in the development of children?

As per usual, if you have any gripes, whinges, issues, complaints or general grievances, feel free to leave a comment and I will feel free to ignore you. Alternatively, if you know the nurture to nature ratio, or how much a sperm bank pays, you may wish to also take a moment to air your thoughts.

*I feel obligated to acknowledge my reference to “culture” in this entry, owing largely to the fact that the activities of the estate serfs** could scarcely be referred to as culture.

**I am also aware of that the definition of a “serf” is:
“A member of the lowest feudal class, attached to the land owned by a lord and required to perform labor in return for certain legal or customary rights”.
As you can see the use of the word is in part correct, with the minor omission that serfs actually are in gainful employment. If you happen to be a serf and feel aggrieved by my choice of wording, please accept my apologies in advance.

Trains, Buses and the Travelling Community!

I used to have a certain degree of admiration for the travelling community. They were like a band of lovable rogues, with their own unique way of life. I was fortunate enough, to be treated to a brief glimpse into the life of a certain traveller gentleman not too long ago.

If I am perfectly honest, his story was just a little more than intriguing, although admittedly, he could have spent a little extra time ironing out the minor details. You see, he was in the unfortunate position of having insufficient funds for the train to Dublin. What’s more, his wife – who was pregnant – was sitting up in the train station. Much to my disappointment, this meant that I was unable to meet the glowing mother to be in person.

Anyway, among the details of his current - and not to mention most unfortunate - circumstances, lay the potential for me to play a small role as a sort of rudimentary saviour, or “Good Samaritan” if you will. The deal was that if I would only be so kind as to provide him with a bridging loan of a mere £10, he would gladly reimburse me upon his return to Belfast that very same evening. Upon realising that I would require reassurances of the return of my loan, he offered to provide me with his mobile number. That way, I could call him after 7pm that same night and arrange to meet him for the return of my money.

I know what you are thinking. Who could possibly refuse a deal like that! Clearly, nobody willing to give up their mobile number as collateral, would ever dream of pulling a fast one with my tenner. As tempted as I was to seal-the-deal right there and then, I did something that could be considered completely out of character, given the gentleman’s circumstances.

Firstly you need to understand that £10 may be insufficient for the gentleman to make his journey. So, I took the opportunity to ask how much he presently had in his finances, which as it turned out was £20.00! As you could only imagine, I was struggling to contain my excitement. I informed him that I had just the solution to his dilemma. If he and his wife – the one that was pregnant – could see their way to the Europa Bus Centre, he would be able to afford two tickets to Dublin, for a mere £19.30. Having found such a great solution to the problem, I was about to head on my way when he decided to just check, that seeing as I no longer needed to loan him £20.00 then perhaps I might part with £2.00 instead. Having no change I had to decline.

I am guessing that he and his wife – the pregnant one – just had to make the journey in the end without refreshments, but I suppose we can’t have it all. You may think that this is the maddest thing, but when you pretty much rely on the bus to get around, you invariably develop the knack of knowing just how much every journey costs.

Office Lesbians and a Crap Working Life!

The call-centre is the modern equivalent to the sweatshop. Anybody who has ever watched those social history programmes about life as a mill-worker will very quickly begin to see some, more than disturbing correlations.

The role that the call-centre plays is more akin to some sort of monstrous Russian Gulag, than the average working office. In my office in particular, we have a large number of the lesbian community. I know, your thinking that’s brilliant! But before you start filling in an application form, I would strongly recommend that you continue to read on; unless of course you happen to be a Lesbian, in which case feel free to send in an application. Myself like almost every other man, has a fantasy of hot-looking lesbians constantly “getting it on” and that was how I would have been happy for it to stay. The reality of the lesbian office demographic is that most lesbians seem to either just look plain, or worse still like chubby 15-year-old boys with a dress sense to match. Seriously! Before you click on the comment button to express your outrage at the above comments, let me assure you that this is leading somewhere, although at this current juncture I still can’t be 100% where.

In no particular order of “why it isn’t fun to work in a call-centre” please find the list below:

The pay is crap.
The hours are long.
There is no thanks and little reward.
The work is mind numbingly boring.
You are constantly being watched, monitored and regarded with suspicion by the ‘management’.
And finally, the holiday entitlement is abysmal to the extreme.

If the lesbians had been hot, I could have overlooked the rest of my company’s shortcomings, but I guess that was just too much to ask.

Anyway, that’s all from me, but just to be on the safe side. I don’t have a problem with the lesbians in the office; I just prefer the ones in my head. If you feel the need to express outrage, click the comment button below, and I in turn, will continue to exercise my right to completely ignore what you say.

The Foot Is Down! Praise the lord!

After a hard week slogging it out in that job we all know and hate, there is nothing that I like more than to sit at home on a Friday night with the sole objective of obliterating what once was a fine nation of brain-cells.

Not anymore! Well that’s what the girlfriend thinks anyway. She has decided that since she is devoid of flaws and imperfections, that she would be best turning the focus of her attention to me. What she hasn’t quite realised yet, is that this is going to be something of a laborious project. You see I think she is overlooking the small detail that I have more vices than Fred Dibnah’s tool shed. No doubt she will waste no time hunting them down one-by-one, like some sort of emotionally sadistic splinter cell of the Salvation Army. Stalking her prey before finally moving in for the kill.
I should probably step back from the edge of the resentment cliff, before somebody – namely me - says something that they later find themselves regretting.

I don’t mind not being able to drink on a Friday night in my own house, even if it is after a hard week in an unfulfilling job. But after last weekend I discovered a minor problem that I am confident is here to stay. For some inexplicable reason, I seem to have been singled out for a phantom hangover, which looks like it will pay me a visit every Saturday morning regardless of whether I have been drinking or not.
The only possible cause of these phantom hangovers is that my body has been stockpiling surplus “hangovae” for some years now. Sadly, I am merely required to have a quick reminiscence to the last time I had a cognitive memory; in order to realise that I have a considerable reservoir stowed away. Instantly the phrase:

“My God, my God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?”

springs to mind. And it is all accompanied with harrowing images to help conjure up my own personalized version of hell to boot. With the pain and anguish brought about by the phantom hangover, I have decided to give my girlfriend what she wants and just hide alcohol around the house in a variety of cunning and devious locations. After all what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her.

Anyway, I’m off to build a “speak easy” in my bathroom, but in the meantime I’ll have to just stick to my copy of “The Good Book”.

NHS Sunday? Prepare to die of boredom!

I had the dubious honour of spending Sunday up in the Ulster Hospital. Don’t worry I’m fine; it was my “significant other” who was banjaxed. Or to phrase it in the terms of those of a sturdier disposition, she had a “dodgy finger”. In fairness to the girl, she had already been to the GP to have it looked at and was given antibiotics, which hadn’t worked. Naturally this played straight into the hands of her “hypocondrian sensibilities” and ensured that my Sunday afternoon was written off as a lost cause.

As a man, who is more than familiar with the present state of the NHS, I was already aware that a Sunday afternoon probably isn’t the best time to go the hospital. Sadly my girlfriend’s finger was on the brink of falling off – or at least that what she indicated was due to happen – so I was unable to persuade her, that perhaps going in the middle of the week, would be a slightly more opportune time.

Since I was destined to end up in a hospital, I figured that “the Ulster” was less likely to be filled with the usual plethora of Saturday night casualties. As it happened my instincts were bang on the money, and the expectant scene of carnage didn’t materialise. My first thought was that we could possibly be sitting in the U.K.’s only utopian NHS hospital; but as it happened and in traditional NHS fashion, they managed to ensure that the stereotype was rigidly maintained.

As would be expected, the waiting area is a no smoking zone, which to my mind is ridiculous as a hospital waiting area is possibly the best place to suffer from a smoking related malfunction. Naturally, as we already know, times have changed and we just have to roll with the punches. All that is, with the acceptance of the hospital staff, who according to the many large posters now lining the walls of the waiting area, are exempt from being punched.
Naturally, it is easy to see the reasoning behind this and when you have only been sitting there for roughly 30 minutes you are inclined to agree with the sentiment. However, after the 3-hour mark, you quickly find yourself switching sides in the “war on NHS violence” and begin looking for somebody to strike.
Perhaps the answer to this scourge - which apparently is a blight on the NHS - would be to start treating patients within a reasonable time frame and not leave them like lost souls in a perpetual state of purgatory.

Anyway, after about 3½ hours, two doctors and an X-ray, we were told that it was a mild tissue infection, and promptly dispatched back onto the street with a little tube of magic cream. I can only hope it works, because I really can’t face another Sunday as provided by an NHS waiting room.

The Sushi Train of pain!

Well, as previously stated, I was sworn to go for Sushi on Friday night. And as a man of my word, we went for sushi. There are a couple of problems that I have with sushi. Firstly as much as I like the taste of fish, I don’t particularly like the smell of it. And secondly, I am a man who likes carbohydrates by the barrel load. I should probably point out that it was the first time that I have eaten sushi and to be honest, it doesn’t taste too bad. However, the atmosphere of the place has ensured, that I came away with psychological sushi scars that may not heal for some time.

Rather than that typical restaurant feeling that we all know and love, you kind of get a feeling more equated to having dinner in the luggage lounge in Heathrow Airport. Instead of suitcases, you are confronted by little plates of food travelling aimlessly round a conveyor belt, which could have been there for any undetermined period of time. Come to think of it, that isn't like Heathrow at all. The plates of food would have to be cracked open and the contents stolen to be like any airport luggage lounge.
It would be better described as a lottery, only you really wouldn’t want to be the winner. If the lottery aspect isn’t enough of a deterrent there is also the small issue of mental arithmetic exam that you are required to use in order to avoid bankruptcy. Now that I think about it, I am almost certain that they have based the billing system on the old verbal reasoning tests, once immortalised by the 11+. The system is quite simple in principle, but not so applicable to the real world. Just so you have an idea of what I mean I have prepared an example below:

Blue Plates = £2.00
Green Plates = £2.50
Yellow Plates = £3.00
Red Plates = £3.50

It doesn’t seem too difficult so far; until that is you start to get into it. During the meal, we managed to go through:

4 blue plates, 4 yellow plates and 4 green plates. = £30.00

If the customer has 3 bottles of beer and the waiting staff have the speed and stealth of ninjas. Who got shafted on the bill?

Yes! You guessed it! I got shafted!

If this is the format for all sushi restaurants, it is easy to see why “Dr Kawashima’s: Brain Training” is so popular in Japan. Anyway, I think it will be sometime before I venture over the threshold and into the world of sushi again.

Best just to stick to the traditional restaurant arrangement in the future.

No I don't want a loan, but I would like you to pay my damn rent!

Okay, maybe I’m just becoming increasingly infected with uncontrollable rage as I get older, but the end of last week left me with the overwhelming urge to strike somebody employed within the financial sector.

It all started on Friday morning when I phoned the bank. I am also more than aware of the old cliché surrounding banks and the generalised hatred of them, but this is different. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t pissed off that they have taken an extortionate sum of money from me, in what they like to call “charges”. However, that is not what I am taking exception to.

Having recently managed to clear the balance of my credit card, but only after several years of having to hand over great wads of cash, in an attempt to keep the financial wolf from the door.
I thought I was in the clear, until Friday morning that is, when I had the dubious pleasure of calling my bank to find out why the rent had not left my account. You would think that it was pretty straightforward, but after asking my question and getting fobbed off by Raymond – the agent of darkness on the other end of the line - it quickly becomes clear that he has no interest in answering my query. Nope, Raymond has his own agenda. He has decided that instead of telling me about why money hasn’t left my account that I would rather know about the Halifax’s extensive range of loans, which coincidently are extremely affordable. At least that is, if what Raymond told me is to be believed. (Apparently, the UK’s interest rates don’t apply on planet Halifax).

This isn’t the first time that I have been financially propositioned by a bank clerk either. I recently paid a cheque into my account and was then asked if I would like to apply for a credit card. Clearly, these people are not doing their jobs properly. Even the most fleeting of glances at my banking history would tell a delightful story of personal loans and credit card debts. So the only assumption, that can be made from these perpetual offers of money from the bank, is that they rather preferred me when I had to give all my money to them, rather than getting to keep it for myself.
Perhaps, I will send them a bunch of flowers along with a sypathy card that reads, sorry to hear about your loss of customer service.

The 29th February! Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid!

I have just learned through the “Rumour Mill” that women are allowed to propose to men on the 29th of February. No doubt men all over the country are sitting in a cold sweat and trying to hide from significant others and crazy randoms.

I took the opportunity to look into this one further and it would appear that the carnage does not stop there. That’s right! Apparently this hair-brained tradition doesn’t extend quite as far as the woman buying the engagement ring. Nor would it surprise me in the slightest if the whole idea was created by a woman. After all the terms of the contract seem to be very much in the woman’s favour.

If any women are thinking of proposing to their other halves, I would like you to take a moment to contemplate the folly of such actions. If your boyfriend/casual sex partner had wanted to get married he would have asked by now. At best he might just turn you down blankly, but at worst if he says yes, then you can look forward to spending the next forty years in abject misery, unless of course he finally decides one day that he has had enough and just wills himself to death.

This is a dangerous day indeed. A day that is by its very nature too open for abuse, from spinsters and lady-stalkers. Men quite frequently say “yes” as a cover for having not been listening to the conversation in the first place and there is no guarantee that they will have picked up on the marriage thing until the “big day”. I can only imagine that it must feel like being sold into “sex-slavery”, only without the sex and a little less freedom.

As it stands, I have been press-ganged into dinner this evening and I am starting to get more than a little nervous at the prospect of the whole ordeal. So, if you haven’t heard from me within the next month or so, you’ll know that it didn’t go well.

Valentines Day! Decadent Industries and Financial Molestation!

Thank fuck! Valentines Day is finally over and done with. All I can say right now is that it is quite possibly the biggest swindle to have been unleashed on the human race and should be abandoned forthwith.
Now that I can look back retrospectively on the carnage and misery of the event, I can right it off as a day when greedy self-centred girlfriends, levy all types of outlandish demands in the name of “love”.

I am starting to get the feeling that this blog entry may be just a little unjustified, on account of having a girlfriend who doesn’t pander to the hype that surrounds the day. With that said, I still can’t shake the feeling that my other half may just be stockpiling these minor indiscretions. At any rate, at least I have given her the only thing that is prized by women above any material possessions. Leverage, ammunition, call it what you may, but I have a funny feeling that the next time harsh words are exchanged in the heat of battle, it won’t be long before this little bombshell is dropped right back on my doorstep.

I and every other man in the world have very good reason to despise Valentines Day. Retailers are out to make an absolute killing and seem to manage to do so, with a mercenary disregard that would cause the toughest of men to shed a tear. I recently heard of a florist charging the extortionate price of £60 for 12 roses. I wouldn’t have a problem paying that sort of money, provided that the roses came wrapped in the “Shroud of Turin”. Of course, I only heard about this florist, because they were on the news, crying about how large supermarkets were stealing business from them by offering roses for the grand sum of £10. It doesn’t take a statistician to figure out what the gender breakdown of Tesco customers was that day.

For those of you that did get financially raped yesterday, the Valentines Day rules are really quite simple. However, in order to pull it off you will need to have the nerves and bravado of a “grifter”.

1. Firstly, obtain a gift that will ensure, a sleepless night on the sofa has been avoided, whilst parting with the lowest amount of money possible. (See the Tesco Roses).

2. Once this has been achieved the key to getting away with the crime, is to ensure that after the purchased article has been handed to the “mark”, trying not to look as though you spent a miserly quantity of cash on it.

3. Throw in a comment like “I hope you like them”, which will invariably put the other half onto the back foot and remove the opportunity for questioning.

4. And most importantly, make sure you get rid of the damn receipt. This might seem like and obvious schoolboy error, but most girlfriends use the receipts in a mans wallet like GPS. Armed with your receipts they can tell where you have been and what you did.

Finally, the beauty of this system, can be altered and adapted for almost every occasion, so use it wisely.

Man dies in cake-eating contest!

You would be forgiven for thinking that I made that headline up, but you would be wrong. Yes! This did actually happen and I for one find it to be a more than terrifying way to go. I won’t lose any sleep over it, at least until the next time I happen to be invited to a party were I know that “fairy cakes” are going to be in circulation.

I think that we can all agree that this is a headline that you don’t see every day. Not least because I have to whole-heartedly agree with the club owner’s statement, which contains the line “…and should serve as a cautionary tale”. It will no doubt do just that, when parents wheel it out across the country, as a form of foreboding of the perils of gluttonous behavior at birthday parties. In fact now that I think about it, is it not a little insensitive to use reference to a form of fictional story, when consideration is given to the detail that the offending item or items were “fairy cakes”.

If the headline itself isn’t bad enough, clearly the first aiders at the event just weren’t thinking on their feet that particular evening. Everybody over the age of 10 knows that the only treatment for a chronic case of “fairy cake blockage” is 3 ½ gallons of orange squash, preferably administered using one of those crazy straws, which coincidently just don’t seem to be as big as they used to be.

I suppose the people who are going to suffer the most out of this are the ones that come to extend their condolences. I can just imagine it now.

“I'm sorry to hear about Barry, how did he die?”

Try keeping a straight face after getting the answer to that question. I’ll even bet your sitting with a smirk on your face just thinking about it.
As with a lot of funerals, people usually assemble back at a house for a cup of tea and a bun, but given the circumstances, I just can't see how tea and buns would be appropriate.

Anyway, just so you know that I am not making this up, check out the story for yourself by clicking the link below:

http://www.bebo.com/Link.jsp?Url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.bbc.co.uk%2F1%2Fhi%2Fwales%2F7261888.stm

More updates will be posted as and when I think of something, until then that’s your lot.

Ikea: Flat-pack hell for the masses!

So, the “ole lady” and me went to Ikea at the weekend. It should come with a bank manager’s health warning.

I had merely agreed to go to the aforementioned retail store, with the intention of spending about 50 or 60 bones. As you have probably already guessed, things went horribly wrong. As we walked round a grey path complete with arrows to ensure that you don’t get any ideas about breaking from the herd. The corral leads you round mocked up show rooms, which paint a vivid dream of how your home could look, just in case you had any plans of using some artistic license to decorate your home. From there you descend into the belly of the beast, where you are armed with a trolley, which might I add, won’t be long filling with a plethora of crap you could probably live without.

After walking for what seemed to be an eternity in itself, we finally reached the checkout. Looking back, I think I will be bringing a flag to plant at the checkout should I ever decided to return. It isn’t long before the £60 I had planned to spend, sees me walking away with a receipt for £150 and if you thought that the trauma of overshooting my budged is finally behind me you would be wrong. My skills of quantity surveying aren’t long in returning an answer that no taxi driver in Belfast is going to be prepared to load my newly acquired shit into their car. So we are press-ganged into making use of their delivery service, which according to Ikea will deliver the bulky items to our house for a “reasonable fee”.

Twenty-five fucking pounds!!! I must have missed the memo that decided £25 was reasonable! Anyway, rather than dwell on the effin £25 delivery fee, which if you haven’t realised yet, is not fuckin’ reasonable, I will begrudgingly move on to conclude this bleak little episode.

If anyone ever suggests going to Ikea again, I think I will just commit suicide instead. Although admittedly, I may need to look through the Ikea catalogue and buy a flat pack guillotine. At least I don’t have to worry about how I am going to get it home, because Ikea will deliver it for a “reasonable fee”.

My House Hates Me, but at least there's lots of porn!

I think that it is high time I dropped another update into the Ye Ole Blogge. Just realised that it has been at least 255 days since I last vented some of the diatribe that increasingly seems to float around in that colossal blob of grey matter that I like to call a brain.

Currently moved to a new house over in Cregagh, which would be great except it is slowly turning into a bit of a Pandora’s Box.

We managed to get the keys on Wednesday afternoon, only to discover that there was no oil in the tank. Nothing to major you might think, but as it happens the boiler is locked out as well. So having arranged for the oil to be delivered today, I now have to get my old flat mate to call round to unlock the boiler. This might be something to bear in mind for the future. If you have to live with people, it isn’t a bad idea if they happen to work in the trades business.

In a frenzy of logical thinking, I decided that it would probably be a good idea if I bought another £20 worth of electric, which would keep us going for a good chunk of February. Then we discovered issue number two. The stupid keypad that you use to load the code into has decided that my original idea was crap, and as such is refusing point blank to accept anymore credit. This merely leads me to believe that the credit keypad is now harbouring some sort of vendetta against me and would much rather that the Polish people who lived there before me came back. What the keypad doesn’t know, is that I am onto it. It has been trying to fool me by displaying the message “Wrong Tar”, which according to the leaflet that comes with the meter talks about entering a different code. However, I think it is displaying secret messages that can only be read by turning the display screen upside-down, and looking up a result in the Polish-English dictionary. Wee bastard will be laughing on the other side of it’s hash key by the time I’m done with it.

The house might have it’s problems, but it isn’t all bad. It is pretty well decorated and while rummaging around in the hot-press last night, I found a load of “Over 40’s porno”. So I might spend tonight sitting in a bollock-freezing house, but at least I won’t be short of reading material.

I’m gonna wrap this up now, but only because I don’t think that my company pay me for producing blog updates, even if the notion of such a job is quite appealing.

Catch you all later…