Country House -- This Time, For Real

After months and months thinking and talking about moving -- and running down quite a few dead-ends -- our departure from Gotham is (hopefully) imminent.

With no additional mortgage burden, we're swapping this


..for this

If the stars are favourably aligned, we're hoping to move mid- end-May.

..And so the story (really) begins

Country House, Redux

We're in the throes of negotiating the purchase of a lovely house in an Oxfordshire village. Yay, we're actually doing something about the move instead of just tittering on about it incessantly and spending every free hour pouring over Internet house porn..

Given this, a brief misunderstanding this morning between me and P sent me off looking at the BBC's morning TV schedule.

I emailed P to inform her of a brief exchange of views with the selling agent.

She replied with the message "on TV today".

!!!

Because the house we're after has recently been photographed by the BBC for consideration for one of its myriad homes and interiors shows, I thought she meant it had been featured on today's edition of Moving To Somewhere In The Country, Home Makeover Of The Year, Pigsty To Palace or whatever..

And because I feared that a glossy BBC treatment of the place would weaken our negotiating position -- i.e., that the sellers would reject offers and demand heaps more money -- I scurried off to the listings to check.

Anyway, no crisis. P was referring to one of her clients being on the TV news, not the house.

Phew.

I am however, a bit gutted at having missed today's scintilating To Buy Or Not To Buy. From the today's listing:

The property series which gives couples a chance to try before they buy. Presenters Sarah and Simon help a couple from Cambridge find a house with a garden big enough for a donkey.

..Beats mowing the lawn, I guess.

(iP)e(o)ple That (D)ied

Scratch the previous post. The flickers of life are false. The iPod passed away on Friday. It's dead and there's no resuscitation.

We'll have a private family burial in the garden on Saturday -- by which time I'm hopeful it's replacement will have arrived. Moreover, I hope the new one lasts a wee bit longer than deadboy..

I do take back my criticisim of The Genius Bar though. A very nice medico tried hard, but in vain, to repair the beast today. ..And I didn't have to wait long either.

"Teddy sniffing glue he was 12 years old,
Fell from the roof on East two-nine.
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine.
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old --
He looked like 65 when he died,
He was a friend of mine."

Pretty Hate Machine

It'll be an Apple -- that's for sure.

Fourteen months into ownership of an 80Gb 'Classic', the pretty little white and silver music box has died.

It's an ex-iPod with a severely knackered hard drive. All it wants is to be 'restored', but it's circuits are fried and no-can-do.

Of course, this also means that the 12 month warrantee has ended now too. Doh!

The Apple Store on Regent Street has a great technical support facility where you can book online for personal time in-store with an expert fix-it dude. Steveo's bricks and mortar outlets brand this facility 'Genius Bar'. Personally, I think that's a tad ambitious and it would be better christened something more realistic like 'Waiting and Waiting and Waiting Bar'.

Online the experience is great. You book your 'window' just like Ocado -- today, 12:30. But in practice, like all things Apple, it's utter pants. With my name 8th in the queue and 50 minutes past my appointment, I gave up are returned to the office.

If the intention is to upsell loads of other non-essential peripherals to the terminally bored and pissed-off -- it failed.

Of course, I am now a bit adrift without my beloved iPod, so have re-booked for a new drive to be installed at 10:10 tomorrow (only a few minutes after opening) in the hope that there won't be a backlog of other, less deserving, customers ahead of me.

Of course, if the damn things weren't so buggy in the first place..

Grrr.

Licensed To Ill

Just when I'd become accustomed to my TV licence only funding about two hours of worthwhile entertainment a week -- currently, Ashes To Ashes and The Last Enemy (my fondness for Hotel Babylon is an aberration, I admit) -- the Beeb throws up something very special.

OK, the annual appearance of a new Poliakoff or two notwithstanding, quality drama output from the luvvies at Television Centre and White City can be very scarce indeed. Sorry guys, Lark Rise To Candleford just doesn’t count. Outfitting the cast in Edwardian costume and bolloxing around in a pastoral idyll doesn't make a drama and it certainly doesn't equate to quality. It's a period soap and not very good either. Move along..

But last night's White Girl was something else altogether. Part of the BBC's controversial 'White Season' and influenced, it seemed to me anyway, by gritty English dramatists a la Loach and Leigh, it examines the co-existence of white Christian and Asian Muslim working class in Bradford and how the 11 year-old Leah found balance, order and meaning in Islam in contrast to her negligent, destructive quasi-single parent white family.

Enough plot examination. If you saw it, you'll have a view. If not, then I urge you to catch it again on your TV provider's replay service or the BBC's wonderful iPlayer.

A welcome antidote to the standard 24 hours of meaningless crapola like Holby and In It To Win It.

Milk And Alcohol

I have absolutely nothing at all to gripe about. The rain only arrived overnight and no-one's dug up any major roads between home and the office over the weekend -- so all's (kinda) well. ..Although Saturday's simple kitchen tiling job did result in a whole lot of additional plastering and a week-long delay.

So for the sheer bloody hell of it and as demonstration of my more chilled and relaxed outlook, here's a picture of drunken panda cubs. Well, they could just be glugging milk, but I like to think there a wee nip of bamboo hooch in there too. Cute, though however way you cut it.

..Now off to Google for cocaine-addicted badgers and passive aggressive weasels.

No Entry

Having toured Abney Park Cemetery with Ems yesterday afternoon, P and I fancied a small post-walkies libation.

Due to its 'no dogs allowed' policy, we had to eschew The Rose & Crown on Church Street in favour of The Lion. And in complete contrast, not only to its neighbour, but every other pub in N16 it would seem, The Lion has the most enlightened and reasonable policy going. It operates an 'all dogs welcome, children not' policy -- which suits we three just fine. Even the exceptional Shakey lets the feral neighbourhood brats run wild until they're banished at 8pm.

The Lion's simple guiding principal is that pubs are for adults and kindergartens are for children. Moreover, that a man and his 'best friend' (wives too, of course), should be able to enjoy a pint or two together in peace and without prejudice.

The Lion also has a nice and secure rear garden for its poochie patrons to wander and sniff. Indeed, so welcoming is it to its canine clientele, the pub garden's bushes are well stocked with dead squirrels as a hearty snack for those inquisitive enough to find them. Well, Ems found one yesterday and ate the whole thing in a matter of minutes..

P had a nice glass of the house red.

I had a nice cold Belgian lager.

And dog had a mangy old squirrel.

Everyone's a winner. Brilliant.

Addendum: As I'm rather inconsistent, the sentiments expressed here of course, don't apply to my nephew Charlie and niece Maddie who are very welcome to join me down the pub at any time ;-)