Moving House

This the second part in my 'two of the most stressful things you can do in your life' list (the first being getting married). As I previously mentioned, I did both in a year which provides a huge incentive to go on mad rampage with an automatic weapon. Apparently I'm a masochist though as we chose the third year to have a baby. Fun times.

Weddings are fun and so is moving house in a similarly "my-bank-account-will-never-be-in-credit-again" way. Moving in/out of rented accommodation doesn't count, that's child's play. You need to be selling and buying to get hit with the full force of needless hassle and unexpected expense. My personal favourite (aside from £1,700 for a solicitor to fire out a couple of letters), is the Stamp Duty. Now, we all know it's a pointless tax. It's the Government saying the equivalent of "Oh, buying a house are you, moneybags? We'll have some of that action".

I'm not even going to get into the fact that the money you spend on this tax has, itself, already been taxed half a dozen times. At least in 'olden' days you actually got a physical bloody stamp. What did I get? A bill for more than eight grand and it may as well have included a patronising "thanks" and a pat on the head. Actually, thinking about it, any thanks at all would have been nice...

The actual move involves all the organisational hell you think it will, including the packing of all your things. I swear I’d walk into one medium sized room with some empty boxes, survey the task ahead and conclude that one hour was plenty of time to clear it out. Two hours later I would have half a dozen full boxes and the room would look as though I hadn’t shifted a thing. I lived in a Tardis.

Of course the issue with the actual move is timing. When you’re selling one house and buying another you need the money from the first sale to go towards the purchase of the second (unless you’re considerably richer than me). This means your old house’s sale goes through and the money is released to purchase your new house. This sort of happens at the same time (well, within minutes). It also means that the house all your furniture is in now belongs to someone else and they’d like you to move it all. Preferably within the following ten minutes. That’s fun too, especially when you need about five trips in a fair sized van to do it with a half hour round trip.

Anyway, I’ve been in my detached house for several years now and the neighbours haven't been round to complain during the noisy sections in The Dark Knight. Seriously Chris Nolan, sort your volume levels out. It's not helpful having your actors sound like they're whispering half a second before letting off more explosions than a Michael Bay wet dream. Sitting there with the remote control shifting the volume up and down constantly kind of took away from the ambiance. Yes, that did actually happen.

Anyway, the diminished chances of annoying people with noise is a good thing. I like noise. I can now bellow at the dog when she drags her arse across the carpet without fear of giving someone a heart attack next door. Still, I’m never satisfied (you’re shocked, I can tell) so once the pain has subsided from memory and I’ve spent the time considering how to avoid as many costs as possible, I’ll doubtless look at doing it all again. After all, this house doesn't have a swimming pool or a shooting range.

Getting Married

Apparently two of the most stressful things you can do in life are to get married and to move house. I did both in the space of a year, and I've addressed moving house here (because the joy should be spread around equally).

I can vouch that the organisation side of a wedding is not the most pleasurable experience. And by “not pleasurable” I mean “I’d rather perform surgery on myself with a rusty spoon and a junior hacksaw”. Of course the whole process would be less intrusive if you didn’t need to lube yourself up with a family sized tub of Vaseline and bend over ready for penetration before embarking on the adventure.

What do I mean exactly? Well, buying anything for a wedding is amusing, in a masochistic "are-you-sodding-joking?" type way. Conversations go along these lines:

Me: "Hello. I'd like to arrange some invitations to a party, for probably around a hundred people."
Shop assistant: "No problem, prices are £45."
Me: "Excellent. On the website they look they'll match the wedding colours."
Shop assistant: "Oh, it's for a WEDDING? Sorry, WEDDING invitations are £500."

And so on.

I was quoted £1,650 for four hours use of a Rolls Royce. That’s over £400 an hour. I dropped the phone in shock so I’m unsure whether they were providing Lewis Hamilton to drive us to church too. Luckily I managed to find someone who had a Bentley which wasn’t made of solid gold, otherwise it might have been a Ford Fiesta (and I imagine that a flowing wedding dress creates a few problems getting in one of those).

Nothing for a wedding costs less than £500. It’s a well known fact, and the list of things you need is endless. You apparently need to buy things that I’ve never heard of (and I’m pretty sure I still didn’t see on the day itself either). Then, of course, you must feed people that you’ve never met before and relatives who you don’t like. And I don’t mean pop down to the chippie and grab fifty large portions of chips and some mushy peas either; they expect decent food. I’m pretty sure the hotel where we held the reception wouldn’t have allowed a ‘bring your own’ takeaway food option either. They’d have missed out on the eleventy billion pounds per head it cost. It’s more than I’d spend on a meal for myself, let alone a bunch of freeloaders who all thought it was funny to give us the same cheap toaster from Argos as wedding gifts.

I made the mistake of getting involved and trying to appear committed during the build up, the worst example being me accompanying my soon-to-be wife to a florists to talk about ideas for the big day. After ten minutes if it had been possible to commit suicide with a daffodil I’d have taken the option. It probably didn’t help that I was hungover but I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. I’m unsure when, or where, they both suddenly learned Arabic, but it sounded like the preferred communication protocol. The two of them talked through ideas (I think) for what seemed like a week and I didn’t have a clue whether the words they were using were flowers or placements or procedures or arrangements... Anyway, it’s irrelevant what the words meant, I understand numbers and they added up to more than £500.

The vicar only had the cheek to come round and meet us when Liverpool were playing Chelsea in the Champions’ League. It might have seemed rude to her, for me not to turn down the TV, but I think I pulled it off by looking over her shoulder and just randomly grunting in agreement every now and again. Actually I didn’t pull it off at all because she mentioned it in the service, which was actually kind of a blessing because it momentarily distracted me from the screaming kid I was fantasising about stringing up next to Jesus on the cross.

But of course, as everyone says, the day flies by. Regardless of how much free alcohol is pushed in your direction, it’s impossible to get drunk because you’re pulled from pillar to post until the point where everyone else is drunk and you’re expected to dance romantically. Really? What are these people doing at my wedding if they don’t know me better than that?

Before you know it, it’s all over and you’re simply left with a scrap of paper to confirm your partnership, a bill for your soul and a wife suggesting that maybe a baby should be next on the list.

The Nope Badger

Not much of a rant, or even a post, but I can't resist posting this simply because my childish mind finds it hilarious.

London Airports

I’ve entitled this ‘London Airports’, but that’s really going against my point (stick with me, there is one). Most airports near London have included the capital city in their name when, in reality, it’s a tenuous claim at best. Take London Luton Airport, for example. Well, to anyone from the UK that just doesn’t make any sense. Luton is a town in its own right and it’s a town which is not in London. Sure, if you look on an Atlas then they’re only about a centimetre apart but by that logic Bangkok’s only just down the road too.

People from outside the area consider London to be the chunk of land inside the M25 ring road (even though its not, it’s further in – Watford’s inside the M25 and that’s not London either). Luton airport is fifteen miles outside the M25 and, really, twenty miles from the outskirts of London. You’d be pissed off if you arrived in the centre of London, thirty five miles from Luton airport, expecting to find it around the corner.

Luton’s not the only culprit though. Gatwick is as bad, especially when its website proclaims it to be “Your London airport”. Cheeky bastards, my geography’s not that bad. If it were my airport I’d have put it in the right place, or at least given it a name that made sense. You know, something like “The 20 Mile South of London, Gatwick Airport”. I’m not sure it’s a very catchy name but at least it won’t confuse the foreigners who step off the plane expecting to be able to see Big Ben only to learn they’ve got a ninety minute bus ride before that’s possible. They must end up thinking that London’s the same size as Scotland.

Thankfully they’re not all at it (well, not as blatantly anyway). Stanstead Airport is only slightly further out than Luton and it doesn’t feel the need to plonk the word ‘London’ in front of its name all the time. It does seem like it's optional for them so maybe they just can’t decide. This is curious because it claims to be the third busiest airport in the country so surely it’d benefit from the prestige of having London in its name. After all, Stanstead’s only a small place – a lot smaller than Luton and no-one would know where it is if it wasn’t for the airport.

Even the small Oxford airport claims to be London Oxford Airport which is really taking the piss. It’s fifty miles from London for god’s sake! I hope the people who name these airports are not pilots, otherwise you’re likely to get on a flight to Paris and end up in New York.

You wouldn’t have Liverpool Manchester Airport would you, so why London Luton or London Gatwick? After all Liverpool and Manchester are close to one another. The reason, I believe, is simple: status. It’s almost a subconscious thing. If you live in the south and you’re looking to book a flight then you kind of expect these facilities to be centred around the capital. You might expect to have to travel to London, but not bloody Luton (who wants to go there?) or Crawley (where Gatwick really is). Stick ‘London’ in front of the airport name and all of a sudden it’s what you expected in the first place. It works even more for foreigners (or people from Wales on their first trip over the Severn Bridge). It’s still a bloody con though because they’re not in London, or even very close.

Vegetables

I hate vegetables.

Okay, I don't hate all of them, just a large proportion of them. This really is a non-subject for me but lots of people seem obsessed by it, like I’m going to keel over and die at any minute because I haven’t consumed a lump of broccoli in twenty five years.

Anyone who meets me goes through these questioning stages:

1. "You don't like any vegetables?"
2. "OK, what do you eat?"
3. "I’ve given you extra meat because your plate looked bare".

The latter stage is obviously the most important. You see, vegetables are a cheap filler which, incidentally, taste crap. No-one can honestly convince me that they enjoy the taste of peas. They taste of nothing and the squishy texture of them is horrible. When you eat out somewhere and your chosen steak is served with ‘potatoes or chips and peas’, do what I do and order the meal without peas. It might sound petty because peas can easily be avoided (it’s not like they’re mashed into the steak) but it’s not petty at all. Firstly, why choose to waste? Secondly, when they leave the peas off your serving in the kitchen your plate will look half empty. Like I mentioned before, they’re a filler. A pile of peas is cheap (cheaper than steak) and it takes up a fair amount of space on your plate. You've specifically asked them not to put any on your plate and now it looks empty. They can’t serve you a half empty plate so what do they do? Make up the difference with extra chips. Aha! You don’t think I’m picky now, do you?

Loads of foods get served with sprinklings of cress of them. It’s not there for any other purpose than providing decoration. You’re not supposed to eat it. You take it off and place it on the side of your plate. You don’t eat the little ribbon and plastic snowman atop a Christmas pudding do you?

I do like some vegetables, but the list is pretty small. For example, beetroot is great with cheese in a sandwich, garlic belongs on bread and potatoes are excellent just about everywhere but I really start to struggle much beyond that. It’s not my fault though, I blame my parents. Although I do have a physical reaction to eating many vegetables I’m willing to concede that it’s a psychological issue. I suspect I’m not alone in having being force fed vegetables when I was young. Your parents tell you they're good for you and that your head would fall off if you don't eat them. Being slightly more intelligent than that I figured I’d call their bluff. My head never fell off but the quantities of vegetables increased together with appearance of an ultimatum dictating I wasn’t allowed to leave the table until I’d eaten them all.

At this stage peas are the least of one’s concerns. Like I said, they don’t really taste of anything and the texture can be camouflaged with tomato ketchup. Lots of tomato ketchup. No, there are much worse relatives which can be served up in the place of peas. One of my all-time biggest hatreds when I was growing up was reserved for Brussels Sprouts. Who the hell likes these things? They’re presented with little tiny leaves on them; it’s disgusting. I wouldn’t ask someone else to sit in the garden munching on plants for dinner so why ask me? You can coat peas in tomato sauce and swallow them whole but you can’t do the same with sprouts, can you? Oh yes you can. I don’t recommend it but it’s the only way I got through them. I wasn’t going to chew them.

Yes, I could have choked with a blocked oesophagus and it would have all been the fault of my parents. Instead of treating me like an adult and helping me decide which vegetables I liked, I had them forced at me until I rebelled. Fast forward a couple of decades and here I am, psychologically damaged and still in utter and complete stubborn refusal.

As I mentioned at the top, it really causes me little concern. My biggest headache is with food companies who don’t feel it’s relevant to mention vegetables in their ingredients. I’ve bought a sandwich before only to discover that ‘ham and cheese’ actually means ‘ham and cheese with some hidden bits of lettuce you can’t see in the packing window and we won’t mention in the description’. Bastards. Also, every catering company on the planet seems to believe that buffet sandwiches are incomplete with more greenery than an Amazonian rainforest.

Lots of animals get by without eating ludicrous amounts of mud coated leaves so don’t, for one second, think I’m going to be any worse off in the long run. Humans are omnivores by nature, consuming meat, plants etc. but there are plenty of carnivores which survive on nothing more than a good steak. Your dog might be dopey enough to eat left over vegetables but your cat won’t. No, your cat wants meat. I am not a cat (this much is certain) and I don’t share the same digestive system and nutrient requirements but that is not going to convince me that the route to happiness and long life resides in a stick of celery.

Public Transport

Apparently the world is going to implode sooner or later and it’s all the fault of people who drive cars. Mentalists point out anyone who doesn’t drive a hybrid and blame them for everything which can even vaguely be associated with global warming. The Government jumped on the bandwagon and seized the opportunity to levy additional taxes on anyone who drives anything more powerful than a lawnmower. They were particularly happy because they can tell Greenpeace they’re saving the planet while simultaneously ordering a swimming pool for their second homes with the extra cash. Officially, at least, the Government would rather we all left our cars at home and took public transport.

I won’t mince my words here; I hate public transport. It’s never ready when you are and it’s slow, expensive, dirty and full of other people. The only thing public transport has going for it is the fact that it takes no effort on your part once aboard. But even then it never seems to take you where you want to go. How often have you caught a bus or a train and it’s dropped you exactly at your destination? Never is the answer. Unless your final destination was the train station (and if it was you need help, and probably a girlfriend too). So, you then need to find another way to complete your journey.

My last use of public transport was the train (into London). I had to drive to the train station, which is about 15 miles, and pay a fortune for the privilege of leaving my car there before I even got on the bloody thing. Once I arrived at Paddington Station I needed to get off the train and get on an underground one. When that finally reached its destination I had to disembark and catch a bloody taxi because it was about two miles from my meeting location and I was late. What a massive pain in the backside.

I like to get in the car (at a time of my choosing) and head off where ever I’m going under my own pace without any external constraints. I don’t want to plan my day around specific, timed departures and I don’t wish to spend an hour surfing the net trying to work out timings for several different methods of transport which, combined, will cost more than it would have done to drive.

A return trip from Oxford to Manchester is around 300 miles by car. In my car that’s over half a tank of fuel – about £45 worth. Cost on the train? About £10 to park the car and £70 for the train fare. I realise my fuel costs don’t include car running costs but still, the train is almost twice as much. A couple of years ago I was looking for the best way to get to Scotland and it was cheaper to fly than it was to get the train. Ludicrous.

Of course it doesn’t end there. Once you’re on the train you have to try and find somewhere to actually sit down. Ah yes, let me mention First Class train tickets. I’m guaranteed a seat then aren’t I? Probably, and the aforementioned ticket to Manchester rises in cost to £180 (which is four times more expensive now). So I had to stand up for about half of the last trip I took on a train. If you’re going anywhere near an underground train in London at rush hour then forget it. If it’s a hot, summer’s day then you’re really screwed. You can look forward to having a couple of sweaty armpits aimed in your general direction as you continually get bumped into by the bloke who (evidently) consumed the world’s strongest curry the night before.

Buses are often worse and, depending on the time of day, are more likely to be utilising by drunks or screaming kids. I’m all for the use of an iPod, for example, to drown out the noise but not when you sit within earshot of me. My hypocrisy knows no bounds, sure, but I don’t want to listen to the metallic tsk-tsk-tsk-tsk baseline coming from your headphones.

I’ve covered the fact that none of these public services will take you anywhere close to your actual destination but I’ve yet to mention an additional point; the weather. Nothing says ‘professional’ better than turning up to your important meeting looking like a drowned poodle. No, I refuse to carry an umbrella with me everywhere on the off chance that it might rain. Similarly, I don’t carry a gun just in case we’re invaded or a Swiss Army knife for when I bump into a horse with a stone in its hoof. Call me unprepared if you like, but my car has a roof, and that stops me getting wet.

I’m also guaranteed a seat (which won’t have discarded chewing gum on it) and I’ll be free of interruptions from random members of the public. No-one smelling of urine will come and sit next to me and no sweaty person will attempt to suffocate me with their armpit. I won’t be able to hear kids screaming at each other any more than I’ll be subjected to hanging around in the cold while the public transport of choice is late.

Sure I’ll have to put up with traffic in the car, but buses don’t get around that problem either (that’s what motorbikes are for). Trains are obviously pretty good for avoiding congestion, as mentioned, they’re extortionate and I have to somehow travel 15 miles before I can even catch one.

So the Government would have us use public transport but won’t invest in it until we all do. Catch 22 eh? Not really. Don’t ask me to do something and then promise you’ll improve the service after I’ve done it. That’s a leap of faith I can’t make, especially when it’s a bunch of politicians making the promise. The US Government didn’t ask NASA to put some people in space and, after they’ve done so, then provide the resources for the actual rocket. On that basis I’d like to start a nice new glossy magazine. If lots of big companies could plough money into advertising up front I’ll make some vague promises about filling it with articles and millions of people will buy it. It’s not much of a business plan is it? Are you listening Mr Cameron?

Supermarkets

I have something of a ‘love / hate’ relationship with supermarkets. Well, ‘love’ is a bit strong so maybe more of an ‘appreciate / hate’ relationship. I appreciate them insofar as they stock a wide variety of food and household related products in one place which is easily accessible. Having said that, so does the internet and that has the added advantage of porn too.

I hate supermarkets for pretty much the same reasons I appreciate them. I detest the thought of driving five miles to the supermarket and spending an hour trudging up and down the aisles mentally calculating which size tin of beans offers best value for money. So I don’t; the wife does it.

That sounds bad, so let me explain. At best, supermarkets are frequented by people like me (no, not miserable bastards, although I’m sure they need to eat too). I mean that when I go to the supermarket (under duress) the trolley does not stop moving until I reach the tills to pay. It does not stop while I ponder endlessly over which brand of cereal I might desire a week on Tuesday and it doesn’t stop by the bloody beans either. I go into the supermarket and, because I use the same one, I can go at a decent walking pace down each aisle, knocking the required items off the shelf and into the trolley as I go. I don’t look at new products and I don’t buy anything different. That would require pause.

This actually raises another point. You know what puts paid to this time efficient shopping technique? When the supermarket manager thinks it’s hilarious to completely change the layout of the store for no reason whatsoever. Why do they do it? The bread’s been in the same place for two years but all of a sudden someone thinks it’d do better where the DVDs used to be, alongside the eggs which used to be near the tinned products. So, you end up lost. Shopping takes twice as long because you can’t find anything and when you get home you realise you didn’t actually get any cereal at all, because you don’t remember seeing any.

And it’s all bollocks anyway. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I verge on being a fussy eater. Well, not fussy exactly but I don’t like vegetables and I’m genuinely not that interested in eating. I probably wouldn’t do it except I’ll apparently collapse and die otherwise. So hopefully you can begin to see why supermarket shopping is such a chore to me. And that’s before I refer to the other type of people who shop there.

Now I’ve mentioned already that people irritate me in supermarkets. I guess I don’t notice the efficient shoppers because, well, they’re efficient and they’re not cocking around and getting in people’s way. I’m not being picky here, some shoppers will irritate even the most patient of people (which is not me, in case you were wondering). Let’s start with the morons who push their trolley into the middle of the aisle and then wander off somewhere. On any given trip you’ll experience at least half a dozen (seemingly) abandoned trolleys parked sideways so that nobody can get by. For a while I took them as targets and crashed into them with my trolley, sending them spinning into shelving. Anyway, this is not as satisfying as you might think if the trolley’s owner is not around to witness it. Half the time they’ve wandered off to a different section, oblivious to the fact that they’re inconsiderate twats. My new plan is two fold. First, move their trolley into the next aisle. That’ll make them think they’re going insane when they return. Next, remove some of the more important items and put them back on the shelves. It’s not stealing because they haven’t been paid for. Don’t remove so many that they’ll notice but imagine how annoyed they’ll be when they get home (after finally tracking down the trolley) to find they’ve got no bread or milk.

What next? Children. You’d think I hate kids and it’s not true. I love mine, I just hate everyone else’s. I’m not going to come up with anything original here. They scream, they make a noise and some of them are so completely unaware of their environment that you’d think they wanted to be run down by a trolley-wielding lunatic. Indulge them. It’s all part of the learning process. The upshot is that I don’t want to hear a snot-ridden brat screaming and wailing at its mother because she won’t buy it a king sized Mars bar.

Then you have the people who I like to refer to as ‘rolling roadblocks’. You get these everywhere, they’re not confined to supermarkets. It’s all about the stunning ability to make yourself as wide as an entire aisle (or pavement) and then walk with all the speed and urgently of an arthritic snail. Often they’re old and deaf which means “excuse me” (see? I can be polite) has no effect on them. You’re stuck, weaving left and right while weighing up the pros and cons of shoving them into the display of discount biscuits.

The final ones which bother me are the chatters. These are the people who seem to go to the supermarket with the sole purpose and regaling everyone they meet with their plans for the week. What makes these people bad is they, like those mentioned before, abandon their trolleys when they spot a friend. You are, therefore, left with two trolleys and a couple of bored husbands to navigate your way past before continuing your crusade for bulk lager.

What’s the solution? Once again it’s the internet, and you don’t have to purchase your groceries from a dodgy Croatian website either – you can buy it from exactly the same place as you would in person! This way’s much better because no-one can park a trolley in your way and the only thing that can go wrong is having Internet Explorer crash (and if that happens it should serve as a lesson in why you ought to use a decent browser). Even better than all this is the fact they’ll deliver it to your door, meaning fat people don’t have to expend precious calories going to get cream cakes. Sure, they’ll likely charge a delivery fee but you haven’t had to drive to the supermarket and my time is worth more than £5 for the hour it would have taken, so it’s all good.

So, my wife does the shopping online and I pay. Sounds fair? I’ve got to the point where I’m so disinterested in shopping that I can’t be bothered to look through what she’s ordered before handing over my credit card. She’s cottoned on to this. It’s only a matter of time before a bulk delivery of mail-order Eastern European male models arrives.

Convertible Cars Are Pointless

Cabriolets, soft tops, convertibles... whatever you call them. Why? Just, why? I live in England, not California so why would I want a convertible car? It rains on more than one day in three and the year’s average temperature is likely to be around ten degrees Celsius. Yes, we can experience temperatures into the thirties but buying a car just for those five days a year seems a bit much.

But cabriolets do have a roof, don’t they? Of course, but they’re made from nylon (probably) and offer the same shelter from the wind as sticking your head in a plastic bag does before stepping into a wind tunnel. I know there are now metal roofs and I’m sure they’re great. The fact is that the convertible version of the car weighs about six tonnes more than the standard version due to all the extra crap it needs. That big, fat folding metal roof is heavy you know and it has to be stowed somewhere, so forget about being able to put anything in the boot. Or the back seat.

They also bolt loads of bars and struts under the car too to stiffen it (since chopping something in half normally affects its ability to not go all wobbly at the first provocation). Your car now weighs six times more than the model which has a roof. So it’s more expensive, noisier and slower. Oh, and that means it’ll drink more fuel too (but you’ll look good in it for five days a year).

Let me reaffirm that last statement; you’ll look good in it for five days a year. To be fair you might not look good in it ever, but the people who drive around when it is two degrees above freezing with the roof down do not look cool. Obviously they look freezing (almost literally), but that’s not what I mean. It smacks of people trying to justify buying a cabriolet in the first place. If it’s two degrees you do not need the roof down. You don’t want it down either. I wouldn’t have my window down at that temperature and yet these guys will go around trying to convince you that they’re getting some use from their soft top car. I’d let it slide if they were Eskimos and thought two degrees was hot, but they aren’t. It’s given away by the fact that they invariably have the windows wound up and the heating on full blast. Sometimes they wear a hat too. Stop it people, it looks absurd.

Do you know what sounds absurd? Diesel engines. They sound like tractors and I’m yet to meet anyone who defends the clattering, ear assaulting din that they make. With me on that? Fine. You know what does sound great? A petrol V8, and that’s a fact. With those points in mind I’m willing to concede that a convertible V8 would be great with the roof down, but still only when it’s warm enough. Do you know what would never be great with the roof down? Yes, that’s right, a diesel. Not only do you get cold but also get reminded that you’re driving something which sounds like a Massey Ferguson (which, with all that extra weight and the diesel inspired loss of power, is probably about as fast as one too).

Seriously, unless you own a dozen cars and can choose when it comes out to play you need to move about five hundred miles south of England before I’ll accept that a convertible is worthwhile.