Saturday 1 February 2014

Saturday

I'm still being a bit rubbish at updating the blog, life gets in the way.

Spent the week working hard, had several long meetings, got dragged into the drama of someone cocking up at their work - not my work, not my problem, but I kind of found myself stuck the fringes. A friends marriage has broken down, irrevocably - as they say, and it's all gone very nasty - in fact, I'm trying hard not to get involved at all - have been on the fringes of this one before and everyone ends up becoming a punchbag.  Considering how difficult my life is already - I don't want to fall into the trap of distracting myself by taking on another persons grief to displace my own. In other news, an old friend who I've known for many years, but fell out with after they did something phenomenally bad, is apparently terminally ill. I've decided to let this one lie - I won't go into the details - but what they did WAS quite unforgivable, and although I'd never been on the receiving end of the darker side of their nature myself, I think it would only have been a matter of time.

What else... the weather has been terrible all week - the roof has now sprung many leaks - the house smells damp and feels cold, water has been coming in through the doors and windows, the garden is waterlogged and I have no money to fix anything. I found it very difficult to sleep last night because of the gale force wind battering the house - and we have just been given another storm warning for later today. It's not exactly cold - which is a relief - the heating in the front room has packed up now, but it's just depressing on a grand scale. Last night I finished work early - 4.30pm, and walked home from my studio off the seafront with the wind behind me - a car stopped and a complete stranger offered to drive me home, he must have felt sorry for me - I declined ( I was actually quite enjoying it ) but thanked him and made a joke of it - I need all the exercise I can get.

The situation with the dogs has finally reached tipping point and I've been given the details of a re homing charity for the small dog, she's really pushing her dominance thing as hard as possible - getting increasingly destructive - can't leave anything about where she might be able to find in, casualties this week include a chair, a bag of dried figs, a bundle of toilet rolls, toothpaste, psoriasis cream and a billiard ball (!?) - and is wearing the other dog down, stealing his food, forcing him out of his bed in the night and generally exhausting me. The older dog is getting increasingly stressed and cranky - and, like many older people, getting confused and talking to himself. I'm getting up constantly in the night to separate them and put small dog back into her own bed - it's exhausting. She needs to be an only dog, and as she is still young, very healthy, very likeable and people orientated and well trained and very, very pretty - she deserves the chance of a new life - and so do I, Alfie greyhound probably has another couple of years left, and they should be peaceful.

Today is a nice, big fat red letter day - I go from being solvent to crashing back into debt as I cannot afford to pay my tax bill. It's been one big bill after another this year already - no end in sight, the more I work - the more everything costs. In other news one of the licensing brands I work on may be picked up for an animated series, partly thanks to work I did, chuffed with that.

In an attempt to entertain myself and let off some steam - I've been watching a really terrible TV program on catch up - a sort of interior design challenge competition - a bit like Changing Rooms, but with even less to recommend it. The host is Tom Dykhoff - who is an intelligent and respected architecture expert - they must have brought him in for gravitas, he's lost here - poor bastard. The experts are a pair of the worst kind of London centric ponces you could possibly imagine, devoid of wit, charm and talent - pontificating and contradicting themselves constantly - the bloke wearing clothes that would shame a man half his age, the woman reinforcing the worst kind of industry stereotypes - it's pure 'shout at the telly' style entertainment. Each week the contestants (amateurs, bored middle class housewives, self deluded wankers and gobshites) are challenged to decorate rooms in homes belonging to people who are clearly friends of the crew - and who have already ordered the skip to strip out the crap that they are forced to preen over. The quality of 'work' is dire, the presentations garbage, the contestants all clearly desperate for a career in TV, but with little charm or talent - I doubt that they have any chance. Earlier in the week there was a show from Brighton, set in property adjacent to my old house - where I could never afford to live again - and last night they were in Keeling Tower in Bethnal Green.

Keeling is now a luxury private apartment block , but when I lived in it's shadow, empty and derelict, awaiting the wreckers. A flat in Keeling costs in the region of £500,000 - and I found one on the market for £615,000. The occupants were all young and trendy - and clearly in possession of an absurd trust fund or legacy from somewhere. I also found a single room studio in Central London for £450,000 - and a 2 bed flat on an 11 year lease for £500,000. I read an article by a journalist last week who admitted that her humble flat in London had earned more than she ever could - increasing in value by £100,000 every year for the last 3 years. I have a feeling that my house is now only just worth what I paid for it 6 years ago.

It makes no sense whatsoever. The only way a young person today can get a career is by going to college and burdening themselves with about £50k of debt - and then living in miserable, high rent shared flats in over priced London, and then 'somehow' finding about £100,000 in cash to get a property that's too small to live in on a mortgage they can't afford based on a salary they will never earn. I spoke to someone this week who rents a house with 8 other people, that's practically a commune. I should be grateful - even in this tiny little house that leaks like a sieve.. but actually - a lot of the time I feel trapped.

In other news - I went for coffee twice this week - both occasions I paid, both occasions the cost of two cups of coffee came to £5.00. As a result of such outrageous expenditure - I punished myself by not going to see the live broadcast of Coriolanus from the NT.

Additionally, I did something rash. I was persuaded to go on a date - It lasted about 20 mins, never  have two people in the same room been able to experience such mutual disinterest in each other, I was pretty desperate to leave. I don't think I'll bother again.

We seem to have a short, rain free window of opportunity, and it's nearly daylight - I'm going to walk the dogs.

1 comment:

Steerforth said...

I saw the last bit of the interior design programme and shuddered when I realised that the presenter was Tom Dcykhoff. I like his writing. He shouldn't be associated with it. The woman seemed completely vaccuous, with an irritating voice, and the man was the worst sort of middle-class ponce. As for the redesigned rooms - I'd weep if that was my flat.

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