The M42 is a godawful place.

Let’s face it, most motorways are. But at least some actually take you somewhere interesting. You know – London. Or Leeds. Or the junction with the road that goes to Norfolk.

The M42 just seems to go from motorway to motorway. Granted, you can use it to take you away from the Birmingham region, but it doesn’t even do that very well what with all the congestion. It is utterly pointless in the big scheme of things. It has no interesting features and only exists because otherwise there would be a big white gap on the map. We edge along this Bedfordshire of motorways – Baby Servalan and I – stop, start, stop, start.

I spot a small gap to sneak into. Unfortunately, so does somebody else and there is almost a little bit of an accident. I pull back in time, the startled face of Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance, gawking at me from the driver’s seat of the other car.

“That is Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance,” I explain to Baby Servalan. “It is not often that you meet a major celebrity on the M42.”

The black mercedes of Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance, surges forward as the traffic eases slightly.

“We should follow him,” I decide. “To make sure that he is not up to something.”

I zip in to a space a few cars behind him, to the annoyance of a lorry driver who is presumably on the same mission.

The traffic slows slightly again, having reached that annoying stage where every single car is in the outside lane. Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance, is now quite a way ahead. He is escaping!!!

I contemplate doing some overtaking on the inside in order to narrow the gap. Road safety concerns win out, and I hang back like in all the good cop shows, concentrating on maintaining my pursuit.

We all speed up. This stop/start method of driving probably suits the way his feet use the pedals. A couple of cars pull over into the middle lane, and now there is only one between us and Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance. I can afford to ease off a bit now, his F14TLY number plate inadvertently signposting his identity from some distance.

We continue in this manner for some miles, Baby Servalan and I, and Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance. I have to admit that he does not appear to be up to no good. But I maintain my vigilance.

He suddenly pulls off at the M40 junction. I continue on to the M5, cursing the fact that I do not have a CB radio and thus cannot appeal for lorry drivers to continue the chase. Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance, disappears into the concrete distance, no doubt satisfied at having eluded me.

Temporary absence.

Attending my sister RonnieB’s wedding.

Please talk amongst yourselves.

The Methodical Carpenter’s sensational resignation has hit me hard.

On the first floor of the cottage, work is almost finished. The painters are done, the shower is working and Carpetright have been engaged. It is a lovely first floor.

The ground floor is less complete, but still encouraging. A kitchen. A bathroom. One of those outside lights that goes on and off in the middle of the night when an ant wanders past.

So I am reasonably happy with the ground floor.

My issue, as far as I can establish, is getting from one floor to the other. This is an activity that, even with rationing myself, I am likely to want to do several times a day. Being unable to do so, I realise, makes the cottage unsustainable as living accommodation for a family with a young baby. And, having to move out of Narcoleptic Dave’s fully stair-equipped cottage at the end of next week, it suddenly hits me that we will be homeless.

Homeless.

‘Homeless’. It is not a word that I have ever really thought about. There is no such thing, I reflect, as ‘The Homeless’ – only ‘People Without Homes’. And I appear to have joined their ranks. I have only ever really thought about homelessness in an abstract context: ‘it’s terrible the amount of homeless on the Strand. They quite spoilt my enjoyment of the opera.’ But now…

‘Homeless’. From the Latin ‘Homus’ (a place to live) and the Anglo-Saxon ‘Less’ (I have not got one). Homeless.

Homeless. There are many famous and successful homeless people I can take comfort from, like the lady in the van in the Alan Bennett story, and the Littlest Hobo, and Gary Glitter. Although thinking about it, the lady in the van did have a home (a van). But I admit I do not have the problems Gary Glitter has, what with glam rock being very out of fashion in the early twenty-first century.

Homeless.

Clunk!!!

A small block.

Bofffff!!!

Some wedges.

I stood back, utterly alarmed. A confrontation between builders is a frightening experience. The Methodical Carpenter was clearly extremely upset and angry, and the wood was flying.

In front of me, the Methodical Builder tried vainly to calm things down.

“I’m taking my fucking tools!!!”

Crash!!! More wedges.

I did consider some form of intervention along the lines of: ‘Excuse me? This is my cottage. Please stop throwing wood and shouting “fuck” in front of my baby. I’m sure if we all sit down, perhaps with a cup of tea, we can come to some form of amicable arrangement.’

‘Or I will speak to the Syrians, and they will stop this shit’.

But my sense of self-preservation kicked in – the one that constantly prevents me from poking my penis into the food processor.

I’d walked in too late to see the first spark of the argument. But as far as I could work out, the Methodical Carpenter and the Methodical Electrician had been engaging in some form of simmering feud, which had reached a head the previous evening with the electrocution of the Methodical Carpenter. The Methodical Builder, whilst nominally in charge, appeared to have a totally ineffective set of HR policies and procedures to deal with this sort of event, and things had escalated.

Drawing myself up to my full height, and determined to take charge of the situation, I decided to quietly leave, after handing the Methodical Builder his usual cheque for thousands of pounds.

“Don’t worry. It’ll be sorted,” he hissed, in a miserable voice that was almost Shakespearian in its unconvincingness.

I got in the car and drove off. The cottage is almost completed, anyway. Except the stairs, doors, cupboards, wooden floors, skirting boards and everything else remotely related to wood.

I travel to an Important Meeting.

Particularly good timing, I curse, as I wait on the platform for my underground train on the hottest day in the world, ever. It takes five minutes to arrive!!! Reeling from my tube hell misery, I step out into the streets of the big city.

As I have some extra time, I decide to have my hair cut. I have lived in Norfolk for some years now, and still have not quite managed to appoint a local barber with whom (grammar) I am comfortable. Instead, I tend to wait until I visit the big city, and then I go to the place to which I have always been, where the people do not scare me. This is not an ideal arrangement for one who wishes to remain at the cutting edge of style.

I wander down the road, a haystack perched atop my head.

I do not think that women realise how traumatic it is for a man to change barbers. Whilst women tend to choose a hairdresser for facile reasons (quality of hairdressing skills, mutual chemistry etc.), for a bloke the important factor is that they will not laugh at you when you walk in, will not suggest any other possible form of haircut than the one you have already and certainly – certainly – will not attempt any form of conversation whatsoever.

Plus mine employs girls with sort of jiggly breasts, which is also good, although not a factor in my continued enthusiasm in travelling over a hundred miles in order to get a simple wash and trim.

I sit and reflect, as her smooth and dextrous Slovakian fingers softly massage shampoo into my compliant scalp.

The situation is not sustainable, and I know it. I need to bite the bullet. Of strolling in through a shop door to find that the average age of the other customers is double mine. Of realising three minutes into a cut that I will be walking out of there with a basin cut and being able to do nothing about it. Of the conversation about holidays.

Of the conversation about holidays.

This troubles me for the rest of the day. I drop in to stay with my mum and dad on the way home. Being old people, they have the central heating on.

I promised to update people on the POST 8 Save the Post Office campaign.

It has been just over a year since it started, and valued commenter Ric Locke mentioned that he ‘hadn’t seen me make much of politics’ via Haloscan a while back. But he was wrong!!! The Village Post Office has not closed!!! What’s more, Mr Blair and Mr Crozier haven’t even mentioned that they were thinking of closing it.

This is a famous victory for us political bloggers. It was an issue that was not even touched by the so-called ‘MSM Media’ who cosy up to politicians from the Parish Council upwards via the discredited lobby system, existing in a mutual interdependency that is unsustainable in the internet age. Meanwhile, a handful of influential bloggers such as myself have developed a new communications paradigm, bypassing the timidity of the institutionalised and biased print and broadcast media.

Oh Andrew Neil, Neil, Orange Peel!!!

I am therefore very pleased to announce that the campaign, and JonnyB’s Private Secret Diary, has been officially endorsed by the UK Independence Party (scroll down to the foot of the page).

This official endorsement by a major political party is excellent news, and can only help in the quest to draw attention to the impact on our communities of the politicians’ sinister plans.

(Link via Claire)

“When did you say you’re moving back to the cottage?”

“Hopefully the end of the month.”

“Well I’m going to break your windows,” he hissed. “And then I’m going to park my caravan across your drive, so you can’t ever return.”

I threw a consoling arm around his shoulder.

“Hard lines, Wallace,” I said. “You had some bad luck there.”