Well my mate and writing partner CP arrived from Seattle yesterday into a squall of Manchester's finest mist.
This is her first visit to the UK and she is wired. She's brought with her a whole pile of writing ideas that we'll be doing together, some exercises to open up my throat for karaoke nights, and lots more besides. Jeez we're gonna be so busy we'll hardly have time for all the sight-seeing I had planned!
We did the 50c tour of the (unsold!) house, chewed the fat for a couple of hours until jet-lag set in and later we treated her to her first traditional English meal. Sorry to be predictable but what else than...fish and chips? With mushy peas? You bet.
We crammed more laughs into that first 12 hours than I believed possible but one of the best was when she said she was looking forward to seeing some British TV...and the major viewing we had lined up for the evening was the American Idol Final! Hahaha!! She'd already seen it live on Wednesday night, so was sworn to secrecy.
You won't believe the excitement we have arranged for today! A trip to Tesco's. Yes, I know, we're pushing the boat right out here. If word of this gets round we could become 2006's holiday destination of choice.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Come on! Move!
This moving house lark is a pain in the arse innit? That guy I told you about before, our first viewer? We thought he wasn't gonna come at all but then it turned out he'd got lost. He loved the house (allegedly), as did his girlfriend. In fact, it was our house he was "really interested in" according to the agent. That was a week ago and we've not heard anything from him since.
We had a second viewing though, mid-week. Be still my beating heart. This lady brought her entire family with her. I'm not kidding there must have been second- and third-cousins in the mix, godchildren, next-door-neighbours. I started to wonder if they were testing the capacity of our house for parties. She loved the house (allegedly) and could "see herself living here." Then she phoned the agent to say unfortunately it was out of their price range. So why did you come and look at it then? Sheesh.
Still let's look on the bright side. Four weeks in and we've already had twice as many viewings as when we tried to sell it last year. That's got to be a good sign. Hasn't it?
We had a second viewing though, mid-week. Be still my beating heart. This lady brought her entire family with her. I'm not kidding there must have been second- and third-cousins in the mix, godchildren, next-door-neighbours. I started to wonder if they were testing the capacity of our house for parties. She loved the house (allegedly) and could "see herself living here." Then she phoned the agent to say unfortunately it was out of their price range. So why did you come and look at it then? Sheesh.
Still let's look on the bright side. Four weeks in and we've already had twice as many viewings as when we tried to sell it last year. That's got to be a good sign. Hasn't it?
Monday, May 15, 2006
Take a moment to lament...
...the passing of postage stamps.
"Have they passed?" I hear you ask, "I still use first-class stamps."
Indeed you do, as do I, but increasingly I'm finding (like today when I just popped out to the Post Office to mail a package to some friends in Canada) that our beautifully designed and colourful stamps with various face values are being replaced by boring white stickers, computer-generated and printed to the correct postage value in an unprepossessing light gray ink.
Yuk!
Where are the striking butterflies of iridescent hue? The celebrations of Britain's engineering heritage? The commemoration of Doctor Who's twenty-fifth anniversary?
One more step towards a colourless future of blighted bureaucracy and compromised culture.
"Have they passed?" I hear you ask, "I still use first-class stamps."
Indeed you do, as do I, but increasingly I'm finding (like today when I just popped out to the Post Office to mail a package to some friends in Canada) that our beautifully designed and colourful stamps with various face values are being replaced by boring white stickers, computer-generated and printed to the correct postage value in an unprepossessing light gray ink.
Yuk!
Where are the striking butterflies of iridescent hue? The celebrations of Britain's engineering heritage? The commemoration of Doctor Who's twenty-fifth anniversary?
One more step towards a colourless future of blighted bureaucracy and compromised culture.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Someone's coming!
Whooot! Got a phone call from the estate agent yesterday - someone's actually coming to view the house next Saturday! Be still my beating heart. We called into the agents for the people we want to buy from too, to find out why they haven't sent us confirmation in writing that our offer was accepted. Turns out they mailed it to #159 instead of #195! Sheesh! Even worse, there were THREE other people booked in to view OUR house that day. Oh God, please don't let any of them like it. The kitchen is way too small!! You can't cope with it having a laundry in the fourth bedroom! You don't like the road that much, do you? Just give us a week until this guy comes to see ours and buys it, and then our dream house will be off the market and all will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well.
I'm not stressed at all by this. Oh no.
I'm not stressed at all by this. Oh no.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Take the testosterone out of driving
Every day I'm out there on the motorways around the country, and Manchester in particular, there seems to be more mad-heads on the road.
Explain this to me:
When you're driving along a motorway behind a long queue of traffic all sitting in the right-hand lane (the OVERTAKING lane, note) and no-one is overtaking because they are all lined up behind each other; when the middle lane (also an OVERTAKING lane, note) is completely empty for at least five cars in front; when you decide to use that space and accelerate forward gently, not aggressively, and pass that queue of cars at no more than +1 or +2 mph faster than they are travelling; when you catch up with the last car in the middle lane having passed those five or so cars that weren't overtaking; when you continue to coast in the middle lane for at least another two miles; when you then indicate and pull out slowly into the OVERTAKING lane again, into a gap that is six- to seven-car lengths long and the person you are pulling in front of is at least two hundred metres behind you...
When all those conditions exist, as they did at approximately 12:00 on Saturday last, WHY THEN does that person you have pulled out in front of think it's a good idea suddenly to accelerate for all he's worth to try and block your entry into the OVERTAKING lane and, when it becomes obvious that he can't do that because there was just too much space to catch up (so WHY did it bother him so much, when he wasn't making much progress before?), WHY does he then think it's a good idea to overtake you on the inside at speed, cutting past you with only a foot or so room, and then PULL IN in front of you, into the gap between you and the car in front which is now only marginally longer than a single car's length?
Having behaved like a total moron, why does he then sit in front of you, occasionally touching his brakes to cause you to also brake, until he is less than 50 yards from the exit he needs at which point he heads at something less than a 45 degree angle for the exit, cutting across three lanes of traffic in the space of those 50 yards?
Does this make him a better driver than you? Does it make him more of a man than you? Does it alleviate some strange imagined attack on his driver machismo?
Well mate...driver of the rather sad looking black Mondeo, license plate that looked ALMOST like a private plate but one bought by someone with not much money so that you have to really struggle to understand exactly how it can be a private plate but it obviously is intended to be because it's a V-reg on an almost-new car...well, I don't think it proves any of these things.
But that's just me.
You might think I was in the wrong in the first place for overtaking on the inside, but this was a long queue of cars all travelling at the same speed all in the outside lane with nothing on their left. Why were they there? The fact that I could undertake them so slowly, wait a couple of miles and then pull into a massive space all adds up to a careful considered manoeuvre in my book. One that is perfectly acceptable in many civilised countries with roads a lot less congested than our own (America, Canada...). Why does it cause such hostile negative reactions from moronic Mondeo drivers?
It's a mystery.
Explain this to me:
When you're driving along a motorway behind a long queue of traffic all sitting in the right-hand lane (the OVERTAKING lane, note) and no-one is overtaking because they are all lined up behind each other; when the middle lane (also an OVERTAKING lane, note) is completely empty for at least five cars in front; when you decide to use that space and accelerate forward gently, not aggressively, and pass that queue of cars at no more than +1 or +2 mph faster than they are travelling; when you catch up with the last car in the middle lane having passed those five or so cars that weren't overtaking; when you continue to coast in the middle lane for at least another two miles; when you then indicate and pull out slowly into the OVERTAKING lane again, into a gap that is six- to seven-car lengths long and the person you are pulling in front of is at least two hundred metres behind you...
When all those conditions exist, as they did at approximately 12:00 on Saturday last, WHY THEN does that person you have pulled out in front of think it's a good idea suddenly to accelerate for all he's worth to try and block your entry into the OVERTAKING lane and, when it becomes obvious that he can't do that because there was just too much space to catch up (so WHY did it bother him so much, when he wasn't making much progress before?), WHY does he then think it's a good idea to overtake you on the inside at speed, cutting past you with only a foot or so room, and then PULL IN in front of you, into the gap between you and the car in front which is now only marginally longer than a single car's length?
Having behaved like a total moron, why does he then sit in front of you, occasionally touching his brakes to cause you to also brake, until he is less than 50 yards from the exit he needs at which point he heads at something less than a 45 degree angle for the exit, cutting across three lanes of traffic in the space of those 50 yards?
Does this make him a better driver than you? Does it make him more of a man than you? Does it alleviate some strange imagined attack on his driver machismo?
Well mate...driver of the rather sad looking black Mondeo, license plate that looked ALMOST like a private plate but one bought by someone with not much money so that you have to really struggle to understand exactly how it can be a private plate but it obviously is intended to be because it's a V-reg on an almost-new car...well, I don't think it proves any of these things.
But that's just me.
You might think I was in the wrong in the first place for overtaking on the inside, but this was a long queue of cars all travelling at the same speed all in the outside lane with nothing on their left. Why were they there? The fact that I could undertake them so slowly, wait a couple of miles and then pull into a massive space all adds up to a careful considered manoeuvre in my book. One that is perfectly acceptable in many civilised countries with roads a lot less congested than our own (America, Canada...). Why does it cause such hostile negative reactions from moronic Mondeo drivers?
It's a mystery.
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