If Music Could Talk

Happy Geburtstag, James!

matedog wrote: ↑

06 Oct 2021, 1:26pm

Also, discussing Bill Haley/Comets is a nice eff you to Maj on his bday.

He knows what we are.

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday, mate.

Glad to see you're rolling in the dough.

I suggest offshore bank accounts to hide your riches from Mr. Tax Man.

Happy birthday, pal!

Just got it in before midnight, all the best Maj, yer a top fella.

Happy Birthday mate

Thanks everyone. You guys mean the world to me and I'm glad to be part of this brilliant island of misfits. Fuck that hack Bill Haley.

Went to look at the house yesterday and the dumb motherfucker who sold it us still had pretty much all his shit there. Picture Cletus the Slack Jawed Yokel. What are you doing here in my house, says I. Aw, it's been a nightmare says he. Am I going to have to start charging you rent? I asked. No, no - it'll all be gone by six.

It wasn't gonna be done by six - it was ten to five and the house was 3/4s full of crap. I give Cletus my number and tell him to text me when my house was clear and check out the center of the town five minutes walk away, pondering just how simple it must have been to buy a house only 14 years ago for this guy to have one. The town's ridiculous, you could spit across it and there was an average age of 102. White hairs shuffling over cobbled streets between cafes that shut at two pm, betting shops, butchers, funeral homes and hairdressers. I had to stop myself from grabbing any person of colour I
saw and shaking their hand like an old friend. It's this sorta place we can afford Luckily, Wolverhampton is a three mile Uber away if I ever fancy the bright lights or a bar not draped in tattered Union Jack's and floral representations of Spitfires.

The wife drives us home (bringing back the framed Wicker Man poster, plant, and box of books that we were going to christen the house with) and we treat ourselves to a German Diner Kebab, one of Birmingham's nicest delivery meals. I have a beer, play Led Zeppelin IV at a house shaking volume. No text. I put on some Seinfeld and dumb sitcoms, then turn out the lights and throw on an audiobook to pass out to. Gaiman's Stardust, read with a winning Tim Burton-y smugness by the author. Just as Gaiman is getting to a part about some goth in an air balloon or something, my phone rings. It's a-him. Cletus. Ten PM.

Hello?
Really sorry about this but we've got some stuff still in the cellar we don't want, can I come pick it up soon?
No. It needs to be gone tonight.
Oh. Okay, no that's fair enough.
It is fair enough. How much of the house do you think we've bought? I didn't see anything in our contracts about storing your trash for free.
No, I hear you, you've been more than patient.

Fucking mad.

Oh lord, that's tragilarious. Hey, chum, you've just received a cash infusion of tens and tens of thousands of pounds, maybe not act like a hobo under a trestle.

(When we bought our first home, the seller was a very uptight lady who, while she had cleared everything out, refused to leave until, literally, noon on the possession date. We showed up, like, twenty minutes early with a friend and she wouldn't let us in the door. Nope, we had no right to be in there until noon. We wandered around the neighbourhood while she, I guess, waited like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard for twenty minutes then left.)

SM, you just made my morning. Sitting here having coffee laughing at your move in story, feel your frustration. Years from now you'll look back on this, telling you family and friends this tale and laugh your ass off!

The home we're in now had a couple of large items in the backyard that wouldn't fit through the gate and I envisioned having to hire someone to cut them up and haul off. The previous owner really wanted to leave for us (how generous of them), so we had it written in to the escrow instruction to have them removed before we'd sign off on the deal. Funny now but kind of worrisome at the time.

Happy Belated, James!

Sorry about the moving day fiasco. Moving is the fucking worst. Even when it's a good move.

Wolverhampton looks pretty quaint/cute. Keep us posted on the move in. That's a new level of awful.

Sparky wrote: ↑

07 Oct 2021, 9:06am

The home we're in now had a couple of large items in the backyard that wouldn't fit through the gate and I envisioned having to hire someone to cut them up and haul off. The previous owner really wanted to leave for us (how generous of them), so we had it written in to the escrow instruction to have them removed before we'd sign off on the deal. Funny now but kind of worrisome at the time.

When we were house hunting, we looked at one place that had in its basement a small printing press, maybe around the size of an Austin Mini. I have no idea how they got in down there—well, I guess they must have built it from scratch—but getting it out would require a lot of demo. That house also had an absurd number of toilets tucked away. Not full washrooms, just little alcoves with toilets. Including one right off the dining room, with only the thinnest vinyl accordion door to provide privacy.

Dr. Medulla wrote: ↑

07 Oct 2021, 10:51am

Sparky wrote: ↑

07 Oct 2021, 9:06am

The home we're in now had a couple of large items in the backyard that wouldn't fit through the gate and I envisioned having to hire someone to cut them up and haul off. The previous owner really wanted to leave for us (how generous of them), so we had it written in to the escrow instruction to have them removed before we'd sign off on the deal. Funny now but kind of worrisome at the time.

When we were house hunting, we looked at one place that had in its basement a small printing press, maybe around the size of an Austin Mini. I have no idea how they got in down there—well, I guess they must have built it from scratch—but getting it out would require a lot of demo. That house also had an absurd number of toilets tucked away. Not full washrooms, just little alcoves with toilets. Including one right off the dining room, with only the thinnest vinyl accordion door to provide privacy.

That's a lot of work to run that much plumbing. Bizarre stuff.

Dr. Medulla wrote: ↑

07 Oct 2021, 10:51am

Sparky wrote: ↑

07 Oct 2021, 9:06am

The home we're in now had a couple of large items in the backyard that wouldn't fit through the gate and I envisioned having to hire someone to cut them up and haul off. The previous owner really wanted to leave for us (how generous of them), so we had it written in to the escrow instruction to have them removed before we'd sign off on the deal. Funny now but kind of worrisome at the time.

When we were house hunting, we looked at one place that had in its basement a small printing press, maybe around the size of an Austin Mini. I have no idea how they got in down there—well, I guess they must have built it from scratch—but getting it out would require a lot of demo. That house also had an absurd number of toilets tucked away. Not full washrooms, just little alcoves with toilets. Including one right off the dining room, with only the thinnest vinyl accordion door to provide privacy.

When we moved out of our old house, we ended up leaving our ping-pong table there. We had assembled it in the basement a few years back and after a long day of moving, just didn't have it in us to disassemble and reassemble in the new house. We asked the new owners if they were OK with that and they were actually happy about it. Laziness 1 - Table Tennis 0.