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Mark called me on the phone last week. “I’ve got the keys if you’re free to give me a hand.”
“More than happy to help,” I told him. “I’ll be around with the car in ten minutes.”
Mark had finally got the keys to his house back, and with them full access to his property following a long running dispute with his ex-partner.
To say that the break-up had been acrimonious would be an understatement. It had lasted almost a year, there had been shouting and tears, the lives of neighbours had been disrupted, it had ended with lawyers. The two of them certainly weren’t going to be laughing about it in ten years time. He wasn’t expecting the house to be clean and tidy and ready for to move in to. What we did find, however, was, in no uncertain terms, extreme.
Upon entering the front room we encountered a smell; not just a musty smell, but one that hinted at something far worse; something rotting. We suspected foul play. The hunt for the source began.
After checking cupboards, the fireplace and behind the radiator, Mark spotted a grate in the floor of an alcove. One of the six screws was missing. A closer sniff brought about gagging. A few minutes later the cover had been removed and Mark was peering through the hole while trying to hold his breath.
After a moment he got up and stepped away. “There’s two salmon fillets, some chips and something else down there.”
The something else turned out to be curry sauce. Some of the smaller chips were actually maggots. It took us a while, but with the help of a long handled grabber we managed to get most of it out. Some boiling water and bleach dealt with anything alive that we’d missed. We spent some time outside joking about it while we let the house air.
When we finally went back in we noticed another, weaker, smell, this time coming from the kitchen. Our hearts sank as we set about tracking down the next bit of buried treasure. Thirty minutes later and we’d found this second stash: cat food and prawns, laid on a bed of fish fingers, all placed under a loose floorboard beneath the carpet in the kitchen. The joke had started to wear thin. By the time the tuna chunks stuff in a gap next to the waste pipe in the bathroom had been found, no one was laughing.
Now don’t get me wrong, I understand perfectly well what drives someone to do this although I’m not sure if I’d do the same. Where the line was crossed, in my opinion, was when the stuff became difficult to remove: when it went from a bit of nastiness to an infestation.
Then again, maybe I’m missing the point, which was to be nasty without actually stepping over the line to criminal damage.
(Names in this article have been changed.)
Saving your best china for that special occasion? Have you not read any of those (spam) emails which recount the story of the old couple who never use their crystal wine glasses and, in the end, die without ever having the pleasure, all because they were scare the glasses would get damaged?
Broken Plates
Okay, so I only read the first one of those emails and all the rest got treated to a trip to the recycling bin. Still, the moral stands: don’t keep all those nice plates and dishes for a special occasion because you may die never having used them.
Here’s an idea that can help rid you of the fear which keeps those items in the special dresser: every few years smash everything and start again. Of course it’s not quite as simple as that. If you’ve broken all your plates what will you eat your food off? The solution to this is just as simple: during the intervening years save up enough money to replace everything.
This idea has a number of benefits, aside from the fact that it frees you up to use those special plates because it doesn’t matter if you chip one, you’re going to break them all in a few years anyway, there is also the pleasure of breaking all that china. Imagine being able to stand in the garage and smash it all without a care in the world.
Not only will you have had a smashing time and been able to use the crockery you like the look of, but after all that you’ll be able to go on a spending spree and buy plenty of new things. And when isn’t a day brightened by the prospect of having boxes full of new stuff to play with.
Start saving and start smashing.
How do you clean your ears? I use a cotton wool bud every morning, but I have a concern: My mother always told me not to use cotton buds as it would force the wax deeper into my ear.
I have no idea if this is true. It sounds right, but it could just be an old wife’s tale. The other thing is, what do I do if I don’t use a cotton bud? Surely my finger is going to have the same effect?
I have a FM transmitter attached to my media server which broadcasts random music to any radio in the house which is tuned to the correct frequency. This alone is brilliant as I don’t have to listen to DJs waffling on and instead can sing (wail) to my heart’s content in the shower.
The one of downsides of this arrangement (over the far more expensive dedicated music streaming systems) is that the signal reception varies throughout the house and garden. This has caused me to work out various positions I have to stand the radios in. The most amusing is the one by the bed which now has to be propped on its end with the aerial laying across the floor.
I’d still recommend using this set-up over spending tens of thousands on a custom systems, but do be prepared to change the position and location of the radios every now and again.
It appears that iron isn’t just dangerous to those from the realm of Faerie, it is also lethal to men.
My last two blogs about ironing clothes reminded me of the stupid things friends have done with an iron. Here’s a couple:
One friend once tried to iron a muscle style top which had Lycra in it. Now this alone sounds like a bad idea as Lycra can melt, but the funniest part of the story came about because Lycra also has an elastic quality. This meant that my friend had to use his free hand to stretch out the top and when you’ve already done one stupid thing, why not do one more – forget to move your hand as the iron gets closer. The large burn mark on the back of his hand did fade in the end, but as good friends do we still laugh about to this day.
The second story is really something that could have happened with any implement, but was made all the more funny because it was an iron. The mistake this time was being in a rush to meet friends for a drink and not having a fresh shirt. This led to using an iron with a frayed flex. A flex that was broken enough to give my friend an electric shock. There are few things that are more amusing than knocking on the front door of a friend’s house and having it answered by a man with a charred arm and frazzled look to him.
Something I’ve picked up on before is that there is meant to be a specific way to iron a shirt. Apparently one should do the cuffs and collars first, then the arms and finally the main body of the shirt.
Ironing is just a thing I picked, but I deal with shirts in exactly the opposite way – the body first and the collar and cuffs last. There’s probably a way to iron t-shirts and trousers as well, but as my way of doing shirts doesn’t appear to have any adverse effect I’m not bothered about looking into it.
I would also suggest that the best way to iron a shirt is to pass it to a woman. 
Following the breakdown of the boiler at home the other week I began to realise how little I use the thing for hot water and how much I need the central heating. The only bit of the boiler which failed was the flow switch on the hot water system, meaning that I still had a warm house but no hot running water. This brought me to the realisation that because of the washing machine and the dishwasher the only time hot water is needed is for showering (does anyone have a bath these days?) and washing hands.
I’m now left wondering that if one of the showers had its own heating element would I have even bothered to get the boiler fixed. Probably not as quickly.
I was skimming through this book – How to Get Things Really Flat: A Man’s Guide to Ironing, Dusting and Other Household Arts – and it got me thinking about ironing.
Blokes don’t tend to iron clothes unless they have to but I’m not sure why? It’s not like they can’t (well most of them) and the whole ‘it’s not macho’ thing isn’t really the answer, not these days.
So, is the real reason because men are not made to or given the chance to? Is it because they are taking the easy way out and women are letting them?
I suspect so and bloody well done. Keep up the good work lads.
A couple of weeks ago I walked into the kitchen while the dishwasher was running. I was slightly perturbed to see water running out from underneath it, flowing along the grouting like little rivers.
Now I’m not one to panic, so all I did was get some kitchen roll and place it down to soak up the water – after all why stop the dishwasher, that would just mean I would have to wash the pots and pans by hand and it’s better to have a wet kitchen than do that.
Once the dishwasher had finished I emptied it out and had every intention of finding out where the leak had come from. Something, of course, got in the way and it was only a few days later when it was full again that I remembered I had still not sorted out the leak. Not wanting to remove everything I turned the dishwasher on and let it run.
To my surprise and pleasure there was no leak. In fact, weeks later, the leak has still not returned. A brilliant example of laziness is good for you, poking around at the back of things is not. (Or maybe I have a self repairing dishwasher.)
To the right is a picture of the desk in my study (apologies for the quality, low energy bulbs don’t help). 
The computer screen was originally in the corner (right-hand from the chair) and when typing I would sit at an angle. While I was just doing a bit of web browsing and online gaming this wasn’t a problem, but since I’ve started writing I’ve found it’s not the best layout hence moving the screen to the centre.
The problem I now have is that my wonderful idea of keeping all the technology out of the way (I wanted a classic library/study as I already have bookcases and a couple of chairs) has been spoiled by the screen being sat in the middle of the desk. Maybe I could find some way of making the screen pop up when it’s needed. Now that would look cool.
