Be very proud to be British because…

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Only in Britain… can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.

Only in Britain… do supermarkets make sick people walk all the way to the back of the shop to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

Only in Britain… do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a DIET coke.

Only in Britain… do banks leave both doors open and chain the pens to the counters.

Only in Britain… do we leave cars worth thousands of pounds on the drive and lock our junk and cheap lawn mower in the garage.

Only in Britain… do we use answering machines to screen calls and then have ‘call waiting’ so we won’t miss a call from someone we didn’t want to talk to in the first place.

Only in Britain… are there disabled parking places in front of a skating rink.

NOT TO MENTION
3 Brits die each year testing if a 9v battery works on their tongue.

142 Brits were injured in 1999 by not removing all pins from new shirts.

58 Brits are injured each year by using sharp knives instead of screwdrivers.

31 Brits have died since 1996 by watering their Christmas tree while the fairy lights were plugged in.

9 Brits have died in the last 3 years believing that Christmas decorations were chocolates.

British Hospitals reported 4 broken arms last year after cracker-pulling accidents.

101 people since 1999 have had broken parts of plastic toys pulled out of the soles of their feet.

8 Brits had serious burns in 2000 trying on a new jumper with a lit cigarette in their mouth.

A massive 543 Brits were admitted to A&E in the last two years after opening bottles of beer with their teeth.

5 Brits were injured last year in accidents involving out-of-control Scalextric cars.

AND FINALLY
In 2000 eight Brits cracked their skull whilst throwing up into the toilet

With a lot of help from the wonderful Ms Curteis…

The bedroom is complete apart from buying the new mattress, duvets and sheets and buying, then clipping into place the TV cable (along with the phone cable).

The bathroom is complete apart from buying and hanging the shower curtain and either removing the old sealant and putting new sealant in its place or finding a way of removing the stubborn mould from the old sealant. I’d prefer the latter since removing sealant is a pain and putting new sealant in its place will be a right pain due to the large gap between the tiles and the bath. My dad recommends Cillit Bang and Sandra Skeldon recommends Dettox.

I fear Cillit Bang will attack the bath as well as the mould and being more environmentally unfriendly than sniffing my armpit.

We’ve also touched up the hall, including repainting all the doors and their surrounds.

Tomorrow (er, later today) I’ll venture forth to try to buy lots of stuff and take the first loads to be recycled.

Meanwhile I get to sleep in my bed, in my bedroom!

woke around 11 am after getting to sleep after 2am.

Finally dragged my carcase out around 1pm, carrying a rucsac containing my recycling, the TV cable so I could by the correct cable clips, a 10m ethernet cable that had hitched a ride and some oddments of medication that had leapt from my medicine cabinet into the rucsac.

The recycling centre in Argyle Street carpart had vanished but the one at the union was open. I dumped off paper, plastic, metal and random ancient bedsheets.

The ironmongers was closed so I meandered on to the hardware/DIY store. They didn’t have edging strip (and I’d forgotten to bring the sample anyway) but I bought:

• 15 metres of co-axial TV cable (£6)
• 2 white shower curtains (£15·99 each)
• 2 tubes of bathroom silicone sealant (£6.99 each)
• 2 packs of cable clips (£0·99 each)
• rubber gloves (£2·49)
• mould remover (£3·99)
• superglue (£2.49)
• 3m tape-measure (£2·49)
• a cheap hammer (£4·99)

I wish I’d kept my tools here!

Next to Woolworths & Ponden Mill to price up up bedding. I ended up buying 2 pillows for £5.

(In the middle of all this, my brother called to remind me that we hadn’t got anything for my dad’s birthday tomorrow. That was sorted when I got home. No details yet except a public thank-you to Emily at Misco for friendly and efficient service.)

What’s next?

• clean the mould from the bath seal.
• if that fails, cut the old sealant away, use nasty chemical guck to remove the remnants, then re-seal.
• reinstall the shampoo rack
• install the shower curtain
• seal the kitchen units to the walls (I used the guck to get rid of the old sealant yesterday evening.)
• clean the kitchen cupboards
• put the crockery and cooking gear back in the kitchen, creating an inventory as I go.

I feel another late night coming on!

According to Ponden Mill, the standard UK bed sizes are
Single: 3′ x 6′ 3” (36” x 75”)
Double: 4′ 6” x 6′ 3” (54” x 75”)
King Size: 5′ x 6′ 6” (60” x 78”)
(‘ = feet, ” = inches)

My bed is 4′ x 5’ 10” (48” x 70”). Is this a queen size? No wonder I never got standard size bedding to fit!

I’ve repainted the Mystic Mauve (light blue!) bedroom walls completely. There wasn’t enough Green Parrot to even begin to cover the other two walls, so I just rotuched the parts where a TV cable had gouged paint off the wall.

I realised I didn’t have a hope of replacing the connector on the TV cable that goes from the lounge to the bedroom so I decided to replace it. Removing the old one destroyed 4 of the cable-clips that held it in place, so more will be needed, along with a 15-metre TV cable so tenants can place a TV almost anywhere in the bedroom.

I wonder if DIY stores will be open tomorrow. Meanwhile time to eat, put some furniture back in the bedroom and then attack the mank on the nathroom walls and ceiling. Uurrgghh…..

I footered about before tackling the bathroom because I knew it would be the mankiest part of the whole proceeding. The lounge and kitchen will take longer but they’re nowhere near as manky.

I started by trying to clean away the layer of brown/black mould on the ceiling. Uurrggghh! Some of this mank doesn’t shift, even when attacked with sugar soap and bathroom cleaner. I think I’ll let it dry tonight and then paint over it.

I then washed the painted walls, the sink and toilet and took a break before starting on the shower/bath area. First thing was to dismantle the shampoo stand so I could later clean behind it. Then I took down the shower curtain rail, dismantled it and cleaned the components. The utter worst was balancing on the edge of the bath, clean the grouting between the tiles above the bath. I don’t think the mank nestling in the angle between the wall and top of the bath will shift, so that’s going to be covered with opaque filler/sealer.

Tomorrow I’ll need to paint the ceiling, the windowsill and retouch the walls where paint has flaked away. I also need to buy a new shower curtain because the old one is ripped and manky past redemption.

I think that’s enough for today!

Bedroom floor is swept.
Bedroom walls have been washed with sugar soap, rinsed and are now drying.
Bedroom floor has been mopped and is now drying.

From what I can see, one of the walls I feared needed repainting doesn’t. However I was too energetic in a few spots and so some bits will need touched up. I’ll make a final judgement in daylight tomorrow.

Meanwhile time to curl up with Inspector Rebus and the Pismo, working out how much I’ve spent on what this year.

This is what I have to do to get Mycelium Mansion rented out:

• tell my bank to refund money they owe me and set up a savings account for the majority of my redundancy payment
• clean bedroom & repaint at least 1 wall
• clean bathroom & retouch paintwork where damp has hassled it
• get new shower curtain
• clean lounge & retouch paintwork where I’ve hassled it
• clean kitchen & retouch paintwork where I’ve hassled it
• clean hall & retouch paintwork where loft ladder has hassled it
• replace lounge curtains
• clean and hem kitchen curtains
• give stuff back to to folk I’ve borrowed it from
• sort my paperwork. I have a huge filing box full of bank statements, etc. It’s all filed by type but there’s a lot of out-of-date stuff and the types could be grouped much better.
• check loft
• find a tenant or get a letting agency to do so
• deal with any effects of the flat being let on the mortgage, buildings insurance and my relationship with the housing association who own the rest of the building
• sort contents insurance because most of my stuff is at my parents and the rest will be in the care of a tenant
• create an inventory

So far I’ve just about emptied the bedroom – only the TV and two chests of drawers to go, then I’m going to the pub for lunch.

(from 22nd December)
My dad has BT’s ‘Broadband Basic’ service. I phone BT to ask about upgrading to a service that can be used with a router.

The first BT-serf I speak with tells me that their lowest-cost but router- and mac-friendly option is ‘BT Broadband option 1’. It’s the same cost as Basic but with a higher download limit. I ask whether there’ll be any changes to my dad’s service apart from this, i.e. will his email address stay the same? The BT-serf doesn’t know so passes me onto one of her colleagues. He doesn’t know either and passes me on again, to “Mark James” who assures me that it’ll all go fine and that there’ll be no interruptions to Dad’s BT service.

Mr James asks dad to confirm that he’s happy for this changeover. Dad does so: he and I are both happy that it costs no more and, apart from being passed a couple of times until I actually get to speak to the operator who has use of the BT braincell today, I’m pretty pleased that it appears to be going so smoothly.

I then ask the killer question: ‘this is purely a change of permissions and billing, not a hardware change?’
‘Yes’
‘So you can do it today?’
‘I’ve just commissioned the change’
‘And it will be done by…?’
‘3rd January’

Maybe I’ve misunderstood the complexities of the task. Maybe BT are just covering their backsides. (Better not to promise something unless you know you can achieve it.) But 14 days … ? I end the conversation politely and walk away trembling… This means I can go back to Scotland for Hogmanay and to rent out my flat, then bring my router back here, rather than buying a new one for Worcester, but if BT stuff up, I’ll be in Scotland when they do and not due back here for at least a fortnight to sort out any mess which BT create but for which I’m ultimately responsible.

Before that, I walk into the vodaphone shop on Worcester’s High Street. I tell them that I’m interested in upgrading my contract to get a treo handset. (Even though I don’t like keyboards on Palms, I think it’ll be the best way to stay online while I’m in India.)
‘Sorry, we’re a “High Street” shop. For this product, you need to visit one of our business customer shops.’
‘Where’s the nearest?’
‘Birmingham Bull Ring’
For those of you who are lucky enough never to have been there, Birmingham is the UK’s second-largest city. It’s far better than London, principally because Brummies are on the whole decent folk with quaint accents who (at least until recently) make things. However, it’s still a concrete shit-hole, of which the Bull Ring is the epi-smegging-bastard-bollock-features-centre. Think of the Wellgate magnified by carcinoma to fill all of Dundee. No chance!

However, the vodaphone person was very helpful. He tells me that my current, much-travelled and apparently bomb-proof Nokia 3310 will work in India and just about everywhere I intend to visit. He also tells me where I can buy a battery for it. So kudos to him but sucks to his employers.

Sucks too to Carphone Warehouse who tell the same story.