Stuffed toys have the coldest eyes

Today was a dark day. Today I murdered an old friend in cold blood. Well, it was more of a 'leaving for dead' than murder... but given that the victim was Sterte the bear as pictured in a previous post, there wasn't exactly much he could do to get out of the situation. Me and a friend (thanks Ollie) drove him to the dump, tip, landfill, skip or any other name for a 'crap hole' (I can never decide what to call it) and left him sat in a big skip filled with other people's unwanted detritus staring at the wall. I swear he stopped smiling. It was appalling. I took a photo but upon taking it my memory card destroyed itself, somewhat fitting I think, Ollie thinks it's a sign and that I should sleep with one eye open tonight.

ANYWAY, so yes, the removals cockney's turned up a day early, a fact that got me super freaked out and panicky. I was running around trying... actually, i don't really remember what I did, it's all a bit of a blur, somewhat like when you've been dancing in a club for a few days. But, I'm glad it happened as it forced me to get my stuff together pretty quick. They did a bloody fantastic job when they eventually arrived, and I kind of left them to packing up the big stuff whilst I threw random objects into boxes.

I should add that I found out they were coming at about 8 in the morning, a fact that wasn't helped by a slight hangover caused by a lovely evening spent with friends. Thanks to Al and Aimee for the lovely meal and company :) Also, thanks everyone for the various presents, except 'the cock puncher', I'm not sure if customs will let that past. I was also taped to some scaffolding by tape that said 'I love you' on it... which was just lovely (see photo).

OOOH, big news from yesterday. I bought my very first pair of sunglasses! Okay, so that might not sound terribly interesting, but anyone that's seen me put on any glasses will know what I'm talking about... I have somewhat of a bizarre shaped head that really becomes evident when donning said headgear. Recently someone remarked how I was like one of the aliens from the film Aliens... I would be insulted if it weren't true.

Urgh, sorry to moan on again about the estate agents, but my god those people are inept beyond belief. They've rang me up about four or five times these last few days to ask things that they know the bloody answer for. Today they rang up to "confirm that we've got a viewing tomorrow and on Saturday"... by this point I'd gotten annoyed.

"Are you kidding me? I've said all along that I didn't want any viewings until Monday the 3rd."
"Oh, well... we'll the cancel the one tomorrow then."
"I don't want any viewings UNTIL MONDAY"
"....well... we'll cancel the one on Saturday too then."

It probably sounds like I'm being a miserable bastard, but I've told them this countless times and they clearly didn't listen and have now wasted someone else's time... cough... I'll get over it.

I did loads of other crappy stuff today that involved massive spiders, worms and general grime but none of it is terribly interesting. Tomorrow is my last day in Leamington so i plan to finish up with everything, go out for the evening, then pack on Saturday and catch my flight at around 4pm. Lovely stuff.

R

Early Retirement

Today I'm packing my stuff up for the removals guys who are coming tomorrow. Well, that's what I would casually say if they were coming tomorrow. Unfortunately I just got a phone call from them and they're going to be here in five or six hours. NIGHT-MARE. I don't even know where to start :(

Everyone hates tv apparently

So as metioned in the last installment, today I attempted to take my tv's/video to some old people's homes. Man, it's difficult giving stuff away for free. One place I went to I was just stared at suspiciously by a man with a wandering chin as he peered around the door like I was some sort of heroin addict about to kick the door down and raid the place for old people. He said no. The other place was slightly better and I was introduced to a succession of confused but grateful managers who ultimately decided to take the video recorder. So I've still got two tv's to ditch... and a bear. I'm thinking that if I don't get rid of them I'll just leave it all out in the street as someone's bound to nab it... but no doubt some kid on a BMX will just shoot at it... at least that's what the media would have me believe at the moment.

Bought yet another spanish book. I think I spend more time buying books than I do reading them.

Tommorrow I'm getting my hob replaced. Which, as it turns out, is bloody good timing because I think I just broke another hob trying, and failing, to make popcorn... again. I've done it about ten times now and only once have I managed to not nearly burn the building down. I wouldn't mind but the popcorn comes out like burnt stones, so it's not even worth the danger.

R

Trains, Bears and Automatic Line Spacings

Just got back from visiting my parents for the last time. As I mentioned before they've also just moved and are now living out of boxes in a rather unusually structured house. It's weird seeing all their old stuff copied and pasted into a new building, a bit like seeing someone walking down the street wearing all your clothes.

Irritatingly the train from Leamington Spa to Bournemouth costs a whopping sixty pounds, which is pretty much the same price as the flight to Palma that I just booked cost me. How on earth Virgin Trains can charge that much when the air conditioning broke causing people to pass out in the carriages is beyond me. One thing that I'll never get tired of moaning about is the quiet zone on trains. Being a highly auditory person, I get really irritated by loud noises so I always make sure I'm sat in the quiet zone... I don't really know why I bother as it just seems to attract the world's loudest, rudest and stupidest people. I mean, if you insist on talking so loud that my ears start hurting then at least make the conversation of some interest rather than some inane chicken-in-a-basket style whining about 'how rude people are nowadays'. Bitches.

Anyway, yes, I've booked my tickets to leave now. Next Saturday afternoon from Birmingham. Strangely every flight to Palma seems to arrive between 2 and 5 in the morning... which is just great. 'Think you can avoid jet lag by going to a place that's only an hour ahead? Yeah, well screw you, we're gonna make you fly when you should be asleep.'

I've got a couple of TV's and a video player to ditch still, but my mum had the genius idea of taking them to an old people's home. Luckily I'm in the OAP mecca here so am hopefully gonna off-load tomorrow. Now everyone wants those fancy LCD TV's there seems to be no place in the world for a TV the size of medium sized bear.

Speaking of medium sized bears, I also have to ditch my beloved Sterte. I bought him for five pounds from the weirdest shop on earth many years ago. He's a very large soft toy bear which I'm sure was used as a means to smuggle cocaine from South America at some stage but got lost on route to his, presumably, moustached owners. As with CRT televisions, there seems to be no demand for such a large object... especially as he leaks stuffing and has a dubious brown stain on his chest. He's also reduced in height by 50% due to his own weight squashing himself... so he looks somewhat rotund. If anyone wants him... let me know, he's very happy and kids would love him... unless they've already got an LCD version.

R

(oh, if anyone's wondering what's up with my formatting, yeah, well blogger's formatting sucks and it keeps messing it up, I'm giving up trying to get it to work now so you'll just have to put up with excess line spaces)
(I've just had to come back and edit this post AGAIN because it added SIX line spaces to each paragraph... what a pile of crap)

i am not using capitals in this title... i'm standing up for the little man

I've just spent the last 48 hours filling in forms. It was horrible. If I close my eyes I can still see massive BLOCK CAPITALS and boxes that you MUST WRITE INSIDE careering towards me with their fascist ad ministerial moustaches drawn on with BLACK BALLPOINT PEN... because any other hue or configuration of pen wouldn‘t be acceptable to the totalitarian super computer controlling my personal data. He’s a pedantic bastard.

The amount of times I had to print out yet another form because I'd written in my name wrong... again. I was seriously approaching the 'punching-self-in-face' zone again. I also had to make SIX, count them, SIX trips to the post office today. I hate the post office. No wonder it's going out of business. Still, my post is now being redirected to good ol' Espania. Thumbs up to correspondence and global warming (see, I figure I'm hardly doing the environment any favours by flying all my junk mail to Mallorca... but I have to for tax reasons, and because England can certainly do with being warmer).

I also saw my favourite financial siren again. I'm beginning to seriously dislike that woman. Fixed bank stuff though, which is a moderate relief. Although that took two trips, one of them unnecessary.

Due to me destroying one of my cooker hobs a while back I've had to replace the whole bloody thing for the new tenants, that'll be 200 'clams' down the drain then. Take it from me kids, if you value you 'clams' don't bother washing your cooker hobs, it'll just end up in frightening electrical sparkage and loss of clams.

I've sorted out my mortgage. Well, replace 'sorted out' with 'gone through the horror of eternal on-hold music for someone to eventually pick up the phone and then send me through some more forms‘. I LOOK FORWARD TO WRITING MORE THINGS IN CAPITALS.

Do we REALLY need capital letters? A whole additional alphabet to learn the shape of... and for what? Seems like a waste of our finite brain capacity to me.

Also, on analysing the contract from my estate agents, it transpires that they're a bunch of bastards. There's seriously one part in there that basically says "if we screw anything up, especially money, then we're not responsible"... another favourite was "if we lose your keys then we'll get more cut, which you'll have to pay for, as well as an addition fifty pounds of administration costs". Man, if that was me, I'd be throwing keys out the window all day. What the hell is the administration cost of getting some keys cut? All the women that I talk to at that place have that awful estate agent accent too... it's like each syllable is really drawn out, just to ensure maximum patronising potential.
Continuing the crappiness, my removals contacted me, after agreeing to come next Wednesday to do the packing and pickup, they said: "we'll be round on Friday, please confirm everything is packed, if not, what needs doing?". Well... apart from being the WRONG DAY, you can equate that to getting some painters in and them saying "please confirm that the house will already be painted when we arrive". Cue more hassle and finally it was sorted.

I guess I should also briefly describe my last few days at work too. Well, I spent the last couple of days desperately trying to finish up and brain dump everywhere, sending out as many emails to people that I could in the time... there wasn't enough time. Had the standard ritualistic leaving embarrassment session where I received various trinkets and paraphernalia, very nice. Then I had the company day on my last day... which was an unbelievable day. The most surprising part being the 'Robert compilation video' they played in the cinema to the whole company... I knew nothing about it. It was like someone crammed all my most embarrassing moments in the recording booth and overlaid it with some horrendous photos of me in suspicious poses. I'm surprised the organisers okayed it to be honest.

We then had a bbq I think, it all gets a bit blurry after that due to the 16 hours of drinking. Suffice to say it was an incredible night though. So much so that I'm still feeling a bit dizzy today... four days later. I wont bore you with more stories of enjoyment... there was a bit where people were sat for ages on puke... how I laughed.

R

Old chinese man say: when story over, close book.

Tomorrow is my last working day at Blitz. It's going to be sad to leave and say goodbye to a happy chapter in my life, but like the littlest hobo, I just keep moving on. I'm not exactly sure why the littlest hobo didn't want to settle down, maybe for the same reason I don't... because I'm not an interesting enough person to be satisfied with a static environment. It's the old 'trick the stupid person by dangling a sombrero and Spanish flag in front of them' distraction tactic, it's not ME that's uninteresting, it's everyone else!!! Yeah, whatever Robert, I'll be moaning about being bored as soon as I land. Now, where's that flag?

Strangely, both my parents and girlfriend are moving right now too, I trust they're not moving into together, I'll have to check up on that. But it's working as a good, and slightly selfish, test for me... I'll learn from the horrendous mistakes they make in their respective moves. Alas, it appears that everything is going well, thus lulling me into a false sense of security which will backfire on me when I put all my rubbish in the removals van and throw all my clothes and electrical goods in the scrunty old skip at the back of my flat.

Speaking of which. The lady with the slightly man-ish voice has been ringing me up again to 'touch base' about the renting of my flat. I've never liked the term "touching base"... it confuses my sexual mind with 'getting to third base'... or whatever number you choose. I never did learn what the numbers represent. I know some people who would have you believe there's only the one base... but I wouldn't know about that because I'm a gentleman, of course.

So anyway, I've been frantically trying to finish all my stuff at work so as to not leave anyone 'in the shit', as it were, but the hard drive on my work computer has handily decided to pass out... very slowly.... repeatedly. At one point I gurned so hard at my computer my brain started to hurt. If only I'd taken that anger management course at work I might have avoided that period where I had to punch myself in the face to calm down.

Other news... the Spanish learning shenanigans are going well. Things are starting to go in the brain nicely now. Although I keep forgetting which is which "I would like..." and "I want...". I figure I'll just be known as the guy that walks around shouting "I WANT THAT!" in all the shops, it'll be my shtick. Besides, the Spanish aren't known for their politeness, something that I'm having to prepare myself for.

R

Everything must go, go, go. Either that or I'll just dump it somewhere

So I've been busy purging my life of the expensive and mostly useless tat that I've been acquiring over my 28 years of existence. This has resulted in a net profit of, oooh, two or three hundred pounds. Well, I say profit very loosely due to the fact (that I'm trying to ignore) that all this stuff probably cost me well in excess of £2000. Money, I might add, that was earnt working in a factory making plastic kettle filters for 4 pound an hour. I'm sure I could have got more money working in a Chinese sweatshop, but at least I avoided communism.

Tomorrow's sale will include an array of games consoles from yesteryear. Now, where did I leave perfect dark, god I loved the multiplayer on that badboy.

I haven't been doing a great deal of ACTUAL work on my moving. This has mostly been due to the fact that I've got bored of whittling down my ever increasing list of 'shit to do before I leave'. But:

I spoke to my (slightly unhelpful) removals company and made up a pseudo-hefty inventory.

I spoke to my (highly unhelpful) bank about emigrating. They talked in circles for ages trying to get me to open a new account because I need to open a new account, I need a new account if I'm going abroad where I'll require a new account... new account. Turns out it was nonsense and the lady with beautiful eyes was just trying to lure me into some sort of trap like a financial Siren with eyes.

I spoke to the citizen's advice bureaux and that was TRUELY the most unhelpful experience thus far. Infact it was so unhelpful that it was helpful. All the people in there had bad teeth, there was almost a 'punch up' (I believe that's what people call them) one time (I went three times). The incredibly nice lady said that in all their time there they'd never had anyone ask about emigrating before and it turns out they didn't have any information. That wasn't what the other old lady said before I'd waited a total of three hours. Still, I did get to hear lots of gossip about the CAB, according to the lady, all immigrants just sit around in their pants and live off benefits. Maybe the daily mail WASN'T lying.

Everyone keeps saying how envious of me they are... but I'm kind of up and down about it. I mean, sure it'll enliven my life and open my mind a little, but... well, I hear the Spanish don't like donkeys, infact I hear they throw rocks at donkeys... and I love donkeys. I don't want my new culture to desensitise me to 'donkey stonings', but maybe I'll warm to it.

I love donkeys. They're nature's punch line, the poor bastards.

I read somewhere that Palestinians have used donkey's as suicide bombers. I'd argue that the donkey doesn't really know what the hell's going on so it's not really a suicide... but that's just me being a pedant. I guess the last thing on the donkey's mind as it's getting blown up is the incorrect use of the word suicide.

R