My wardrobes have arrived!!!

I got them off the ebay. I have been doing loads of shopping there recently. It is brilliant if you are in a community like ours. The wholesale massacre of rural shops by Mr Blair’s government means that there is no shop in the village where you can buy a wardrobe. It is all right for people like me who drive, but it is the old folk that suffer.

As we still have no telly, I decide to assemble them.

About forty-five minutes into the task, I realise the problem with figure (2). There is a dowel that is meant to attach part #7 to the base support part #3, but there is nowhere to insert it. It foxes me for ages. There is no hole!!! There is no hole where I am expecting a hole. I feel like Ray Davies in the song ‘Lola’.

It seems obvious that there is a discrepancy between the instructions and the actual parts, or at least part #7 (and possibly base support part #3). This may mean negative feedback!!! It is exciting.

I email the vendor about my hole issue. There also seems to be a notch issue as well, which means that my simple solution, to create a user-generated hole using a drill, will not work unless I create a user-generated notch using a saw and chisel. I am a bit shy of doing this ever since the debacle in the last property I owned, where I took several thousand pounds off the value of the home by adjusting the fitted wardrobes in the same sort of fashion.

I do not know if any readers can assist, as the vendor has yet to get back to me. If it is any help, it is part #7 we are talking about; base support part #3 seems to be generally sound except for the notch situation.

I leave the bedroom festooned with unpacked wood, and go to ring the aerial men again.

I put my foot down on the ‘fast’ pedal as I scoot through the country lanes.

Up the single track stretch, round the bendy bit, past the old mill. The car responds to my every expert subtle touch, like a woman who is desperate. We slow as we approach the hamlet, as per the 30mph signs.

With the relaxation that comes from not being in any particular hurry, I flash my lights to allow an oncoming Range Rover to turn right. It is HM The Queen driving, with her husband HRH The Duke of Edinburgh. She has her headscarf on, like she does in the pictures.

There are two ways in which you can behave when you see a well-known celebrity person. You can gawp and goggle and point, or you can be all cool and not particularly acknowledge them. As HM The Queen is a class act, she does the latter. So does her husband HRH The Duke of Edinburgh. That is breeding for you.

I am impressed that she does not have her police with guns with her. If I was allowed to have police with guns with me, I would take them everywhere. It would be fucking cool. But that is the difference between us. She does not care about being fucking cool, as she is HM the Queen. Hence the scarf. Plus she herself is probably a better shot than I am if there is any trouble. She could shoot any extremist terrorists in an ambush whilst her husband shouted well-crafted racist abuse.

I pull onto the road that takes me home to the Village. “That was HM The Queen” I explain to Baby Servalan, who is looking unbothered in the passenger seat.

The Village Pub is packed.

“It’s packed in here,” I remark observantly, pushing my way towards the bar with determination, but not with so much determination that I risk getting there before somebody notices me and offers to buy me a pint.

I settle in my Usual Preferred Place in a cramped fashion. Ray stands next to me at the bar, caressing a big glass of wine with eager yet tender hands. I do not usually mention Ray, for no particular reason, but what you need to know as a reader is that he is always in the Village Pub.

“Surprised to see you in here,” I remark, demonstrating the wit with which I am nationally and internationally renowned (nb hence the explanation above, as he is actually always in there, so I am being humorously ironic).

“Yes – I’ve actually moved in,” he replies.

I laugh politely at his sub-me sarcastic humour.

“No – I have actually moved in here,” he insists. “My house is damaged after the gales. So I told the insurance company that I was going to move in here, and they said ‘right-o’”.

I gape at him.

“My car’s a slight wreck as well,” he continues. “A bit of somebody’s roof fell on it.”

But I am not listening. He has moved in to the Village Pub!!! It is, like, his home!!! I am flabbergasted.

It seems to me that there are two types of people in the world. There are the 99.9521% of us who would have our house bashed up in a storm and who would live with it, being miserable in the cold and wet and TVless status quo. And there are the other 0.0479%, to whom it would occur to telephone the insurance company and demand that they are moved in to the Village Pub.

I grab my pint, looking at him with new respect.

Weekend News Round-Up

Thank you for your good wishes. I am feeling fine now, thank you.

Reader Alan Sloman is walking from Land’s End to John o’ Groats!!! He is clearly barking mad, but to be fair the A30 is a bit of a nightmare at any time of year, and trains are too expensive especially 1st class.

You can give him money, for the hospices. I have only had good experience of hospices; they are great.

Tom the Ambulanceman wants a free laptop!!! He has broken ranks and got involved with the – er – ‘a bit flawed’ Love to Lead blog PR campaign run by Charlton Communications for Toshiba. Since I told them that there was no way top blog people would hand over traffic and content to their site without being paid, he has made me look an Idiot and Wrong.

Boooooo….he is undignified and a scab, but also seems a Nice Chap, is a good friend of a good friend and would like a new laptop. So go vote for him here.

Suggest not bothering to leave your email address on the voting page.

I still have no TV!!!

Mighty winds shake the Village.

Beating, battering. Remorseless and with no respect for man, property nor precedent. This wind sneers at the feeble word ‘gale’. It moons at the Beaufort scale.

Elemental forces crushing the puny constructs of man. Bricks and concrete – impostors they might be. Impotent to the intensity unleashed by an angry planet.

It is windy.

I venture outside to rescue our wheelie bin. It is looking disgruntled at being left to its own devices, and much of my rubbish is now in Belgium. I jam it up against a holly bush to try to give it some stability.

Above me, the TV aerial swings wildly on the end of a cable. It seems to have taken some chimney with it, which has ruined my chances of ever establishing what was supporting what. Next door, Short Tony’s merely droops. I risk the twenty-yard trek in order to tell him.

“Ah,” he replies, looking at it at some length.

Some policemen set up a roadblock outside Big A’s house. A tree has fallen!!! They work hard at their rural community-based task, knowing that sooner or later there will be a heart-warming ITV1 light drama series going out at 8.30pm on Sunday nights about them.

Short Tony spots a huge branch in the road. We run out to gather the free wood.

Later, Mrs Martin the IT Consultant telephones. Her garden fence has been blown into her neighbours backyard. I do not ask her if this is a euphemism.

There is another outbreak of winter vomiting disease!!!

I shall return as soon as hygienic.

“You decide,” orders the LTLP, handing me the Radio Times.

I shoot daggers at her. Big daggers, that have been dipped in dog shit. Her mother and father look at me, expectantly.

The past few days have not gone as expected. The plan: visit the in-laws so that I can have a well-earned rest from running around after a crawly Baby and broken-legged LTLP. The reality: visit the in-laws and provide extra care for an ill crawly Baby and winter-vomiting-disease-stricken broken-legged LTLP, who cannot rush to the toilet under her own steam due to aforementioned broken legs.

So I am tired.

And now she has thrown me this curved ball., viz choosing what we will watch on TV. There is no right answer. My in-laws like detective things starring John Thaw, whereas I would ideally like to watch some sort of documentary about lesbains in showers accompanied by the music of early Madness. I doubt that they would enjoy a documentary about lesbains in showers accompanied by the music of early Madness; they are more into sixties music, classical etc. The LTLP likes only things that feature jokes about poo and/or comic depictions of animals being squashed (eg Fish Called Wanda, where Michael Palin runs them over in humorous circumstances).

It is Saturday so there is nothing on the terrestrial TV except the Celebrity Big Brother thing which I do not watch but have heard is rubbish since they introduced the Goodies, I am guessing ruining it for everyone with Graeme Garden’s big ‘I am a doctor I should not be doing this’ ego.

Eventually I choose a film called ‘Kpax’ which seems uncontroversial enough, viz although it does not feature lesbains, John Thaw or squashed animals the synopsis indicates nothing to which anybody could possibly object. Plus it is described as sci-fi which means it is set in space, which is always enjoyable.

In the end it transpires that there is very little about space in the film, so although everybody quite likes it I feel a bit ripped off. But I have got through my shift of choosing. Tomorrow is another endless, endless day, but I go to bed secure that the evening will be Somebody Else’s Problem.