» Family codes and rituals

Rune Family motto...
Our family code is very simple...

"Wherever you may be let your wind blow free.
Be it church or chapel, Let it rattle."
(Daddy Rune, Aunty Rune (aka wicked witch of south west) and Uncle "Baldy" Rune)

This evening ritual is usually punctuated by Daddy Rune doing a bum note solo reclining on the living room floor in just his underpants and socks and commenting on the waft, scent and wetness. Not to mention the Hound Rune letting a few dogfood scented fluffs go at the same time. It happens most evenings without fail as well. The only variation to this family ritual is when company is expected, such as my long suffering O.H Ashe. Daddy Rune then dons a t-shirt in addition to the pants and socks ensemble to appear more "respectable".

Serious thoughts are afoot to make a Rune Family crest with buttocks resplendent citing the age old rhyme. And underneath in schoolboy Latin the phrase "He who smelt it, Dealt it."
(Thu 20th Nov 2008, 19:31, More)

» Rubbish Towns

Seconding the motion for Gravesend, Kent.
I'm originally from the Medway towns *cough* Strood *cough*, the home place of babies, rabies, scabies and other infectious diseases, but moved voluntarily via an 8yr stay in Student Land aka Canterbury (for love rather than money) up to Gravesend just under a year ago. Where do I begin explaining the crapness of my newly adopted home?

It's a festering sore of a place, full of the obligatory knuckle dragging chavs and the youth of the area's main aim is to either get sent to prison at a younger age than their brothers or for the girls to have a baybee as young as possible so they can get a flat and a package of benefits. The area is suffused by a god awful smell known as the "Shorne Stink" which often permeates the place either from rotting paper pulp placed on the fields or if the wind is right from the sewage works near the Thames itself. I like to think of it as the town's own brand of brimstone infused flatulence.

The local populace are mostly clothed in Primarni and George at Asda's finest, or stuff purchased from certain outlet type sports shops which have just opened in the area - One charming example of local fashion trends is clad head to toe in a dayglo green and red triple striped adidas track suit which he thinks makes him look the dogs doodahs, proving that chavs will buy anything provided it has a brand name label on it. People are that cheap that the local charity shops have their donations nicked from outside their shops on a daily basis, same with dustbin day, leave anything out that looks interesting or may contain old clothes or metal and you can guarantee it'll be nicked that evening by individuals of an Eastern European slant and the local plod do nothing about it.

Gravesend has its own quasi ghetto environment, and the usual estates where you don't go unless you're related to half the families there or if you do make sure that you don't make eye contact unless its construed as looking at them funny and requiring a beating. Where the boys still stuff tracky bottom legs into the tops of their long socks because David Beckham did it for footie training a decade ago and the girls wear matching cheap and brightly coloured towelling shell suit things purchased from a stall in one of the shopping precincts that are covered with colourful studs with the boutique's name on it and that are always two sizes too small or falling down on them. And where a certain proportion of the local Asian population ("the GravesIndians" would happily join the BNP without any sense of irony as they're some of the most racist bastards around and give the members of that party a run for their money.

There were plans to blow £6 million on the local Prom and park and turn the beach (read muddy hellhole with rusted trolleys and scarcely any pebbles) into a proper shingled tourist trap which seems to have died a quiet death at the moment along with the original plan to spend millions building the Gravesend Tower - a luxury apartment block and rent out flats from it at 2 grand a month per one bed apartment, totally forgetting that half the population are on benefits of some kind or another and would never afford it even with Housing Benefit. People who even dare swim in the river either come out glowing or not at all sucked in by the river mud and poisoned by the chemical detritus of the industrial areas plus I'm assured by a local that plenty of people may have gone swimming in concrete overshoes in the past as well. If they were to dredge the river properly, well, it'd be amazing how many skeletons and cars they'd find. It was no surprise when that whale got lost up the Thames a couple of months back, that it only managed to get halfway between Northfleet and Greenhithe before suffocating. They ought to be concentrating the money on regenerating the ghost town that is the shopping arcades and encouraging people to shop there rather than hop on the bus for a half hour ride up to Bluewater.

The only bonuses of living here are the closeness to London and the entertainment value of the weekend drunken fights in town. When we've got the money we'll be escaping hopefully. Until then, why bother with Jeremy Kyle when I can walk down the high street and see it first hand?

Apologies for length.. My fiance was worth it.
(Wed 4th Nov 2009, 17:49, More)

» Council Cunts

BT... Wankers... part twelve billion
i worked for the bloody company in a call centre and lets just say i had an inkling that all they gave a monkeys about was sales and kissing the arses of their business customers. then just over a month ago i had to set up a line as the polish housemates had left taking the router with them

set up the line no probs, date was set for the installation only to be told that as the line was with another provider (probably owned by bt openreach their "non competition" company) I'd have to pay the full installation charge of £124.99 along with the good old line rental... and of course the line was only for broadband.

so line gets set up, engineer turns up late and its all fine and dandy, i try to set up broadband (i get it with my colourful phone contract free or stupidly cheap) and get told bt havent' finished working on the line and closing the order, cue a phonecall to bt including 20 mins on hold then being hung up on several times and trying to steer the stress busting automated service to something other than a sales channel who say it'll be done tonight, more work is getting sorted it'll be done by monday. Two days later the whole thing is deader than a dead thing. Cue another call to BT, this time i get told firstly to remove the front of the phone line box and plug a phone in there, then told to use another phone... as the house is toolkit free, i use a knife to check, absolutely dead line. I get frustrated at the line test twat on the line who gets more condescending by the min. I hang up, call again in 5 mins, get told that yes there is an apparent fault, but if there isnt really they'll charge 99.99 for each subsequent visit. I get annoyed, tell them the line is only for my free broadband package and would have stayed with other provider if it wasnt a requirement to have a bt line. two days pass, engineer comes round at dawns crack and he jocularly says actually he's just done a full installation and the line hadnt been there in the first place. am awaiting the quarterly bill now... going to go postal if it has any additional charges on it.

And as for canterbuggery city council... gah. fortnightly rubbish collections and woe betide anyone who actually leaves the bin lid slightly ajar...
(Sat 28th Jul 2007, 15:56, More)

» Housemates from hell

5 years of shared housing...
five years in shared accomodation... what was I thinking, granted three years were uni but still. here's just a few classic stories.

housemate in second year of uni - weird woman, kept to her room nearly all the time, the rest of the time who knows. had this weird thing for pinching the food off the plate i was eating off with her heavily bitten and often sore fingers. said she was veggie, so when it was a plate of turkey bolognaise she took a bit with meat on, realised what was on it and flicked it back to the middle of the plate. she took a whole handful out of a gateau in the fridge as well once...

third year uni. - housemate and then missus were notorious for having noisy sex, (putting it bluntly she had a pair of lungs on her) often they were so noisy people outside would be egging them on.

last house i lived in...
disgusting bastards, shared a house with four others. two of whom didnt understand the word cleaning, toked copious amounts of dope and had dodgy mates round at all hours. one was a drug bore beyond all reckoning. one housemate left two weeks into me being there cos someone shat all over the bathroom, basically everywhere but the toilet from what he was saying, another left because of dodgy mates shouting their mouths off at all hours whilst pilled up. the kitchen was a permanent mess with an oven so coated in burnt food and grease on the bottom it was unrecognisable and more than likely uncleanable, any efforts to clean reverted back to its original state within an hour and there were rubbish bags in the living room for three months as well as a mini landfill in the back garden near enough... still wondering why i stayed for seven months... oh yeah. couldnt afford much else.

can't really mention my very good mate who wanked in his housemate's milk for treating him like a skivvy, ...
(Wed 11th Apr 2007, 15:25, More)