Most of Friday morning was a write-off for reasons I can’t recall. On Friday afternoon I finished emptying the lounge, then swept and mopped the floor, then touched up the paintwork which had been damaged by the desk rubbing cables against the wall. I also clipped the cable from the phone-jack to the USB microfilter to the skirting board. Then I headed to Edinburgh to go furniture-shopping with Elly.

We ate at Omar Khayyam, the nearest (and very good) curry-house to Haymarket station, before retiring to her flat to chat and plan our foray for the morrow. I wanted to buy a new bed, a new sofa, some chairs for the table I’m keeping in the lounge and to at least look for new curtains for the lounge. I’d already found possibly the cheapest bed available online but wanted to be see if before committing.

Elly had a piano lesson in the morning so, as I recall we headed to Ikea just after mid-day. Ikea is a yellow and blue monstrosity to the south of Edinburgh. Every product has a name in (mock?) scandiwegian, most of which make me cringe. After all, what does it matter whether your new glasses are called Äsgärd or Arsehole so long as they hold the right amount of memory-erasure fluid?

Ikea’s also renowned as the place to go if you and your partner want to be sure of an argument, so Elly and I were very pleased to be just friends – neither of us could cope with an argument just now. We saw nothing we liked in Ikea’s bed range and only one sofa we did like. Of course it was out of stock in Edinburgh, Glasgow and even Gateshead. We did find some cheap wooden chairs that would fit with the lounge. I also bought a bog-brush and some dish-washing brushes so it wasn’t a total loss.

We then headed for the nearby branch of Bensons to try out the cheap bed they offered. It looked fine, was in stock and could be delivered within the timescale I wanted. However, the mattress was squishy, so I spend an extra £30 on a better mattress. By then night had fallen and we were both shopped out so we headed back to Elly’s flat for pizza and relaxation. It’s amazing how tiring furniture shopping can be – you walk a bit, talk a lot and otherwise do almost nothing. However, I suppose the tredness is caused by the stress of thinking about spending maybe £1000 on stuff you don’t quite like (or in my case, will not use). Given the choice, I’d spend the money on a cluster of 17-in powerbooks but they’re not so comfortable to sit or sleep on. We tried to find a vegan cheese substitute in Tescos to augment my pizza and bought something called Cheezly. I’m glad I’m not the only one who found it utterly ghastly.

Around 10.30 we packed up Elly’s wagon and headed for St Andrews so we could attack the kitchen together and then try furniture stores in Dundee. Sunday started late but well – we moved the cooker and fridge freer out of their slots and I cleaned the floor while Elly hemmed my kitchen curtains.

Furniture-shopping in Dundee was a similar riot. The stores are huge rambling things, full of ‘ideal’ kitchens and bedrooms that are the size of my entire flat. They’re also full of Dundonians. Much rambling later, we saw in SCS a display model that exactly matched the green of the lounge ceiling. I was ready to buy it there and then but Elly sensibly suggested that we look elsewhere, then come back and and buy it if nothing else showed up. Nothing else did, mostly because neither of us could remember our way around Dundee’s nether regions. I don’t hold this against Elly at all – she hasn’t lived near Dundee for at least 10 years.

So we returned to SCS and Elly coached me in how to bargain for a better deal. SCS needed the sale today so I wasn’t to appear too interested. Elly also butted in to make them deliver the sofa for free. Her personnel and negotiation skills show why she’s a senior civil servant and I’m an unemployed layabout.

So far I’ve bought a bed (complete with mattress, duvet and linen), a sofa, two chairs and cushions, a bog brush, two dish-washing brushes, 15 metres of co-axial TV cable and two end-plugs, two white shower curtains, two tubes of bathroom silicone sealant, two packs of cable clips, a pair of rubber gloves, alleged mould remover, superglue, a tape-measure and a hammer for £814·38. I think my cooker will be £250 so I’m quite pleased with the costs of making Mycelium Mansion fit for human consumption.

I meant to sign off a text tonight with the latin for ‘Bruce the knight-errant’. I erred slightly and put ‘Brvcivs eqvvs errans’ (instead of Brvcivs eques errans’).

You could translate ‘Brvcivs eqvvs errans’ as ‘Bruce the random horse’.

First a bit of a moan… I use iJournal to write my entries (among other things) it picks up the current music better and facilitates linking to URLs and user-names. However it doesn’t (yet) support tags. So I have to then edit the entry in the clunky LJ-interface to add the tag. Boo hiss to using 2 apps to achieve 1 thing!

Today started fine – I was awake at 8.30 after a patchy sleep. I dragged my carcass out of the house to meet up with my bank. I’m finally in the position of being able to threaten to take my account elsewhere and am sorely tempted to move to Smile. Clydesdale treats mac-users as second-class citizens and has no support for Safari. Smile acknowledge that macs exist and tell the users what to do (this is not an invitation to my readership). Also, a friend confirms that their system works on smartphone browsers (at least on Blackberries) so I’m very tempted. Also, Smile has an ethical policy I can’t really fault and Clydesdale is owned by a bunch of Okkers. (‘Hey, Sheila, is Ethics that place where they grow olives and goats?’)

I get home about 11.30 and find that the JobSeeker forms I was meant to receive in the post haven’t arrived. I phone the Cupar office where I’m due to be interviewed and they tell me to simply arrive early to fill in a set of forms there. I see later in the 2-part interview that they laboriously enter my answers into a computer. I wonder why they don’t at least have the option letting me tick the boxes on-line myself. So much paper and time could be saved!

The first part of the interview is to decide the benefits to which I’m entitled. It appears I will get ‘contributions-based JobSeeker’s allowance’ but it won’t start until 8th February because I was paid a month’s notice (fair enough), was paid for 4 days holiday I didn’t get to take (seems a bit unfair to remove my pay for doing ‘extra’ work) and didn’t start the process of registering as unemployed until 4th January (definitely crap because the offices were closed until 4th anyway!) With contributions-based JobSeeker’s allowance comes the news that I don’t get any help with eye-tests or glasses so I hope my current prescription is still valid.

The next part of the interview is about the sort of work I’m seeking and how I’m going about this. I tell them about being in Fife only until 28th January at the latest, then moving back to Worcester and then going to India, so that my active seeking for work won’t really start until September 2006. I’m even more honest about what I would like to do – project management, the production side of publishing, (mac-based) IT for an ethical concern. This is genuine: I do enjoy throwing myself into projects, leading from the front and the production part of publishing. I don’t like the commercial aspects at all and I need to know that what I produce will demonstrably benefit others. I can’t see the challenge in production of novels – all the hard work is done by the author, the editor(s) and the proofreader. And I pride myself on knowing something about macs and IT in general, although I am a mere speck on the windshields of and Pete.

Back to St Andrews about 4.30 and book an eye-test for next Tuesday then shiver my way home. It’s winter in Scotland and it’s bloody cold!

My first task is to clean the kitchen walls. Fortunately the paint in here is OK, provided you like the virulent red. Then I mop the floor and that’s the kitchen finished apart from maybe resealing around the sink. I’m not sure whether I want to do this. The current seal is intact but it’s rather manky, so my choice is between ‘old but functional’ and ‘new but possibly non-functional’.

I then start sorting through some of the guddle in the lounge. In the hall I now have neat piles for

• returning to if she wants any of it
• returning to Ewan
• returning to Will & Adriani
• returning to Baz & Em
• stashing in the loft here or posting home
• dumping

In the bedroom are my two rucsacs and the pile of paperwork to sort through.

Tomorrow I’ll buy my tickets, then clean the lounge, sort the paperwork and take even more stuff to recycle, Oxfam or just dump!

Be very proud to be British because…

______________________________________________
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

Well the mould remover failed spectacularly. So I spent ages cutting the old sealant away from the bath, using the nasty chemical guck to remove the traces (not sure I got all of it out) and putting new sealant in.

Ever tried sealing the edge of a bath behind the taps? Don’t – it’s a fucking nightmare. I found the best way of putting sealant into place was to squirt half an inch onto my index finger, then press/smooth it into place. The best tool I could find for removing the wee beads that leaked around the edge of my finger was a plastic picnic fork. It really worked.

So the bath was sealed late last night. I also sealed around the kitchen units. Neither of look totally professional but they do look OK and I’m quite proud.

I also washed the outsides of the kitchen cupboards, even taking the handles off so I could get rid of 10 years’ worth of grime that had accumulated inside them.

Then I sat in bed, looking for deals on beds. They’re expensive! OK, they’re meant to last ages so the cost per night can be as little as 11p but £400 is far more than I expected.

Today I’ll clean the insides of the cupboards and then go out to pay some bills, chase my bank and buy lining paper for the cupboards and drawers.

I’ve phoned Fife Council to ask about them taking away my old cooker. ‘Special uplifts’ aren’t available until 16th January, so I know I’ll be here at least until then. I suppose this gives me time to buy a new one but I want rid of the old one now so I can clean the floor!

Update (1:51 pm)
The kitchen drawers and cupboards have been cleaned to the best of my ability. The former spice drawer is irreprably stained with turmeric. However at least it’s a clean stain! I’ve also asked Kingdom Housing Association to fix the entry-phone and tried to contact Castle Furniture to get rid of the old bed , sofa and fold-up bed. I think they’re still celebrating Hogmanay.

Next things: food, buying drawer liners and more food!

By the way, my dad’s birthday present arrived in Worcester around 8·30 this morning. Misco have excelled themselves: I only ordered it at 4pm yesterday!

A mac discussion list threw up the following news item. My feelings are:

For the tens of thousands of home PC users: you could have bought macs and saved yourself so much trouble!

For the people who have to use PCs at work: sympathy anyway, redoubled several times over because of this.

For the BOFHs who have to deal with the mess on top of their normal duties, extreme sympathy. Clearing up shit that’s been dumped on you is never nice.

For the perpetrators of virii: you’re all scum. You have no excuse. You see weakness and you exploit it to show off your ‘cleverness’. If you saw someone who depended on wooden crutches, would you reach for a saw and hack up their means of transport, just because you could?

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!

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!