It is a beautiful sunny sunday morning, and I am sitting wrapping glasses, staring out of the window, waiting for my beloved’s dad to arrive in his van.

The light streams in through the third floor window, and the birds twtter fiercely at each other in the North Londonese trees.

A bus drives past. The bus I will never again catch to work. Or until we get sick of the commute and move back, anyway. Another bus - a bus the might have carried me home one of any nights in the last three years.

Oh look! There is the man from flat four. I do hope we get to say goodbye to him later. This is what I will say:

“Oh! It is the man from flat four! Gosh, this is just like the day we moved in, isn’t it? Except it was raining that day, of course. Do you remember that day? You walked past us, standing at the bottom of all these stairs, me, my beloved and our friend dave, contemplating the graft ahead as our boxes slowly got soggy and fell apart.

“And you spoke to us, do you remember? You said “Are you moving into flat 8?” And we said yes. And you said “You don’t have a parking space, you know”.

“And we said Yes, thanks, we know, we don’t drive. And you said “Good”. And then you looked at all our boxes. And then you said “Do you know if your landlady has fixed the overflow pipe yet? It used to drip like nobodys business on number 1’s porch, and they had words and they didn’t like each other at all, do you know if she’s bothered to fix it?”

“And we said we hadn’t got as far as turning the water on, because we’d only just arrived and we were a bit preoccupied with moving boxes. And you said “Well she better have.” And then you walked off. And that was the last time you spoke to us all year, no matter how many times I smiled and hulloed you. So goodbye, neighbour.

“It’s been awfully neighbourish, and neighbourly and all, living upstairs from you. Sorry about the tuba, and the tapdancing, and my pet horse, I hope that we didn’t disturb you too much - oh, and it turned out that she HAD fixed the overflowpipe, so I decided just to throw buckets of water out of the window every five minutes so number 1 wouldn’t feel forgotten. Which reminds me: Did you get the burning poo I left in your letterbox? Yes? Oh smashing. I would hate you to feel overlooked, or ignored, or unwelcome. Well, Good bye number four, goodbye. And thank you.”

Grudge? Me? Never.

I’m going in a minute.
I may not be back for a few days, but I’m not hiating so much as rehousing.
See you in a little bit.
Tell each other jokes or something.

We are so stressed out I have painted a bear nose on my face to stop us arguing. It is very difficult to maintain an argument with someone who has a bear face. I am about to get shouted at for being on the pooter. Luckily, I will not get shouted at for long, because I have a bear face.

He has a point, though. There is still very much to be doing, rather than blogging. But I have just found out I will not have internet at home for a week. That is my excuse.

Anyway. I found a diary from 1995 - a Pre-Raphelites week-per-spread diary with photos every four pages or so.

No idea what I had about Pre-Raphelite art at the time, I think I saw the beautiful, romantic, wispy looking women, and wanted to be one. Which was a terrible idea. I’m just not now, nor ever was, cut out to be one of those pale damsels.

Anyway - clearly at some point in the year I too had realised this, and gone through adding captions to all the pictures. Some are unintelligable now - in-jokes based on whoever I was back then - but some are still a bit funny. For example this picture:

With the text
“STOP DRIBBLING I’M BEGINNING TO RUST UP”

There. Told you moving house was fun.

Though most of the day has been spent packing, I did have to go to work to pick up the season ticket I’ve bought through our loan scheme.

The most expensive thing I’ve ever part owned now sits in the front pocket of my bag, in a flimsey plastic holder. It’s only about five centrimetres by only about nine, made of incredibly thin cardboard, and frankly I would have thought that if you’re charging people a small matter of several thousand English pounds for a small piece of cardboard, you might think about laminating it.

Or at least putting a pretty picture on it. Maybe a nudey picture. You could probably get quite a good one for a few thousand pounds.

Or maybe an optimistic little fortune cookie-esque message. A really bloody astute one.

Or a piece of modern art. Well, I mean, it could actually *be* a piece of modern art, I suppose. It’s very difficult to tell. It could be a piece of modern art called …

Sorry, I just have to say, my beloved, who is just over there, packing, has just stopped, gazed at the Disneyland advert on television and asked “Why does no one ever talk about the fact that Beauty and the Beast is basically a celebration of bestiality?, which I think is a bloody good question, and has put me off my thread completely…

More later.
Moving house. Not quite as fun as you remember, is it?

1) You know how when you’ve written somehthing and you really like it and it’s a bit embarrassing because you don’t want to say you’ve written something good but at the same time you don’t want to NOT say you’ve written something good because you think you have?
Well this is one of those times.

2) We have keys!!!
We have keys for a little house by the sea. I rent it now, but won’t sleep there till Sunday. In four days time we’ll be renting a life miles and miles away to the life we rent now. It’s beautiful, and idyllic, and lovely…

.. and involves a five day commute on a pretty pretty train to the lovely lovely london. We’ll all go to the happy place and then see how that commute shit pans out, shall we?

It’s so beautiful! I’ve got stairs! I’ve got a yard!
We’re five minutes from the station and five minutes from the sea!
I think!
Oh I’m so scared!
Woo!

In the meantime, I’m very, very happy. And excited. And happy.
This whole letting process has been a complete and utter bollocks. Thus reason for, and sorry for, the not bloggingness.

In the meantime, please go and read that link above in point one. It’s the good shit I want to give you, but can’t due to the otherthingness…

Many kisses etc
a

Well, the first thing about them is that they’re my favourite biscuit.

But they SHOULD UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES BE DIPPED IN COFFEE.

Or you could plausibly end up with wet biscuit everywhere.

There are wet biscuit globules on my top. And down my top. And on my trousers. And in my keyboard.

This would seem to demonstrate two things:

1) They should put a dippage warning on non-dippy bicuits.

2) I clearly don’t learn my lesson after the first biscuit. Or the second. Or for that matter the… OOOOH! Biscuit!

See, there are various situations in which, and people to whom, I would like to send this link (via my seeester), but I am so scared that they would hate me for it.

Which is annoying, because at the moment I just silently seethe every time I get one of their emails - is it better to be percieved as rude and end a possible lifetime of seething, or just to seethe and be liked.
Although only liked enough to send group emails rather than the personal one-on-one kind, clearly.

It is a quandary.

An update on why I am being so quiet:
a) I am still trying to finish the Question and Anna’s session from Friday (erk). If you go and look at it now, you will see this I hope to finish answering last friday’s questions by at least 2008.
b) I am moving house, and it is being a bit difficult, thingsIcan’ttalkaboutwise.
c) Big Brother has started, and though I promise I won’t talk about it on this site, I can’t promise I won’t be watching it. Luckily, there are dedicated places we outcasts of the intellectual fold can run to when you cooler, smarter people sneer at us for being lowbrow. We run to specialist blogs that revel with unbounded joy at being lowbrow and loving it. I like finding these things.

Can be found - in part- Right here.

I couldn’t have done it, I have to say, without the inspiration and help of Slate’s (and my) official Eurovisioblogger, the wonderful and fabulous Mike, Rachel in North London, who I never would have picked for a Eurovisionist till this week, My seester, who sat on the sofa and supplied me with witty quotes about countries I’d missed entirely - and also saved me pizza, and My beloved, who had his usual panic about me stressing, and was lovely, if a bit back-seat blogger about it. Did you know back-seat blogging existed? Well it does.

Anyway. Going to finish the Question and Anna II session tomorrow. Honest. But this was, in a worky kind of way, what I spent my saturday night doing. So there. Now you know.

Anyway. How are you? Viva Lordi.

Well, I imagine you’re all busily finishing off work and trying to go home, or gone home, or don’t read this anymore. But if anyone’s out there, I thought I’d have another ‘Question and Annas’ session, Like this one here, which was, in turn, an idea poached from a few of my favourite blogs.

So.

Anyone got a question? I’ll start answering them when I have woken from my nap. Unless there aren’t any, in which case I won’t. Crack on. Or, you know, not. No pressure.

Hokay. It’s half fourish. I completely failed in napping. But here we go all the same…

You can find questions and answers after the jump.

I have currently answered SIXTEEN questions!
And you can read them …. (more…)

[Sorry, as previously mentioned, I had rather a horrid day yesterday. I got a train 200 miles in the wrong direction, realised, got off it, wished I'd brought a phrasebook, tried to speak to the people who had booked all my travel, at which point my phone died, I got a train back the way I was supposed to be going, which sat in a siding for half an hour giving me two minutes to change to the other train I could have got, which was about 2000m run through Rome's main station on a hot day at rush hour in inappropriate shoes, losing my ticket, buying another, followed by half an hour sweating on a windowless train, and then finding I'd missed my flight anyway.

God bless British Airways - they got me on the next one. I keees them. Anyway. All I had to occupy myself with on the train was writing, either in my head or on the pooter. Some things were worky - but for many hours I was just writing in my head for fun. So you don't have to read these, I just wanted to stick them up somewhere because they amused me no end. You could say I was experimenting with the narrative form - but that would be bollocks. I was just trying to keep myself busy so I didn't panic-vomit or cry.]

You are at a railway station.

>Inventory
You have:
A suitcase (heavy)
A ticket
A passport
Sunburn
4000 tourist information leaflets

>Look
You are at a picturesque railway station in the middle of the countryside. There are train tracks here, leading away to your left, and to your right. There is a ticket validation machine here. There is an old lady here. There is a clock here. To your right, there are two platforms.

>Ask old lady about ticket validation machine
I’m sorry, the old lady doesn’t seem to understand what you mean by ‘ticket validation machine’, She mumbles in Italian.

>Ask ticket validation machine about old lady
The ticket validation machine cannot talk!

> Look at ticket validation machine
There is writing on it, though it seems to be in some kind of code. Or ‘Italian’.

>Put ticket into ticket validation machine
You have validated your ticket!

The old lady mumbles incoherently, although almost certainly in Italian. You unfortunately cannot speak Italian, and have no phrasebook.

>L
What do you want to look at?

>L at departure board
There is no departure board here.

>L at departure screen
There is no departure screen here.

>L at timetable
There is no timetable here.

To your left, a bell attached to the station building begins to ring. The old lady mumbles. In Italian.

>Listen
(to bell)
You listen to the bell for a while, it has a pleasing if somewhat urgent tone.

>Listen to announcement
There is no announcement here.

>Remember
What do you want to remember?

>Remember conversation with hotel bloke
You cast your mind back only a matter of hours.
A bloke in the hotel in charge of these kinds of things hands you two tickets for trains. “This one” he says, “is for the train to Rome, which you catch from the village at 12.16″ Then he holds up a second ticket - “Then at Rome Termini, you need to change to the airport express, and this is your ticket for that. Then you’ll be well in time for your plane”.

You remember putting the tickets in a safe place, and noting the way of things: Train at 12.16 from village. Change at Rome Termini. Train to Airport. Plane.

>Look at clock
It is 12.15.

In the distance, you hear a train approaching.
Suddenly, an announcement starts playing through some previously un-noticed speakers.

>Listen to announcement
The announcement is in Italian.

It appears to be announcing the immient arrival of some form of train, but even this translation is mainly conjecture based on preious experience, as unfortunately you continue not to be able to speak Italian.

>L
You are at a railway station. There is a train coming.

>Get on
(train)
You get on the train. It is a nice train, very clean. There is a cute baby here (with parents). There are windows here. Italy is outside.

Time passes.
You fall asleep.

>L out of windows.
You are asleep.

You start to drool a little. Chic Italian women look at you disparagingly.
You doze happily, regardless, dreaming of sunny days in hilltop towns drinking wine and eating bruscetta.

Time passes…

[And then the next bit of the story was written as a 'Choose your own Adventure' book. So I just have to work out how to do that technically now, and then I can post it...]

Something always goes wrong along the way on your journeys, you might be thinking. You may be right, of course.

There were those flights from Glasgow to London, back in the day, when we couldn’t take off because of snow and then, when we did, couldn’t land because of snow the other end.

There was, of course, my first solo trip on public transport, more than 20 years ago, when the lady in front of me carked it half way to Middlesbrough (in retrospect, she had a point).

Oh, then that other coach trip, when someone wanked at me halfway from Glasgow to Tarbet. No no. Wanked.

There was that holiday to Sri Lanka where we narrowly avoided missing our flight, while sitting for three hours in the airport, waiting, as we were, for a flight that didn’t exist (we may have written it down wrong. We realised six minutes before check-in closed).

Then there was that trip to Marseille - a suicide in front of the tracks that stopped all trains on the line to Gatwick - a dash to the express train leaving from the other side of London, only to find that contrary to information, it wasn’t running either, a wait, a panic, and a discovery that all the computer systems had gone down at the departure airport, and everyone was delayed anyway.

Nice - I didn’t mention this, I don’t think… I arrived, extremely early as always, at the airport, to find that the flight I was booked onto had departed… Wait for it… TWO DAYS before I got there. After almost an hour of ‘No seats? None at all?”, the airline realised it was not my extreme tardiness, but the error of their press office - and suddenly discovered a seat on my originally requested (and arrived for) flight.

So, you know, you might have a point when you say that something always seems to go wrong whenever I decide to travel.

And the funny thing is, I was thinking that exact thing myself, on the train this morning, rather smugly, when I realised everything was, for once, going to plan! Yay!

And that set me thinking. Perhaps everything wasn’t going to plan. You know what would be the funniest thing? If I was actually going In Completely the Wrong Direction.

Within an hour, of course, I realised that I happned to be going in the wrong direction. That instead of ‘almost in Rome’, the city from which I was due to fly in a short matter of hours, I was ‘almost in Florence’ - a very nice city, to be sure, but not one I had planned on visiting on the way, and perhaps 200 miles from where I, at the moment, wanted to be.

Italy lovely though. Apart from the whole worst day ever thing. But before that? Beautiful. Fabulous. Gorgeous. Let’s all move to Umbria.

Back in a couple of days.

Question: where’s my passport?

I really should put one of those ‘recent comments’ displays on the side of this blog or something - if only so you can experience the pleasantly random phenomenon that greets me when I open up my email in the morning. See - all my comments get emailed to me, or I woudn’t notice this either.

When I was on Movable Type, all my comment boxes closed automatically after two weeks, because of spam. Now, on Wordpress, spam is easier to catch, so they don’t do that, they just stay open forever (or until I close them)…

Which means that while I’m writing new stuff and letting the old stuff slip off the bottom of the page and out of my mind, the very same posts are going up in the google rankings, and lots of random people are happening upon them, and commenting and things.

For example, quite the little support network started building in a comment box about an apparent infestation of ladybirds in my bathroom.

But my favourite one by far is the comments on my post about my distaste for Thomas Kinkade: Painter of Light (God, I hate him I hate him I hate him).

So there have been some comments from absolute ironclad crazies that I’ve simply had to delete because - well, because frankly if I was going to stick a paintbrush there, I don’t think I’d need such detailed instructions.

Still, the one left in the middle of last night is just too good to throw away:

“Hmm, You must think you are an artist who in reality sucks. Really sucks to be you huh. Ever sold any of your crap? Probably to pay by the hour hotels who don’t know anything more than paint…”

Says an anonymous commenter going by the fabulous handle Hobob Jehosefat, which is a name I’ll be adopting if I ever want to be anonymous and a bit mad.

Because frankly - eh? What does this comment mean? So because I am expressing my unrestrained distaste for a certain feckless dauber, calling him, at one point, a sanctimonious capitalist, and generally giving air to my hatred of his pobsy, pointless work, I am - let me get this straight - a failed artrist who hasn’t sold any of my own paintings but if I have I’m using them to - um - buy prostitutes in badly painted short short let establishments?

What?

Happy Birthday, everyone!

Happy Birthday!

Yay!

OR
Momentary panic

OR
Stick Me in Formaldahide and House Me In The Middling-Bloggers Hall of Fame, I’m Done

OR
Blimey, I’m thinking I might avoid being here this time next year if I were you.

Oh GOD. In eight minutes I’m going to turn 29, and then, after that, I’m just going to get older and older and older and then DIE.

Right. Glad we’ve got that out of the way. Now, where’s the cake? Where are my presents? Can I plausibly mention the paypal button over there -> again and actually get away with it? Wasn’t there something I’d planned to do by 29? Oh hell. Where am I? What was I going to say? Happy Birthday?