Keep On Moving

I’ve moved house again, and I consider this relocation a more positive one; instead of just shuffling between my parents’ respective houses when they got sick of me, I’ve moved in with members of my peer group. Friends, at least for now.

I have a somewhat bipolar view on moving house, although this refers solely to the actual act of moving all the crap you’ve accumulated from one location to another. It’s the shifting of domiciles that gets me all flustered, rather than generally changing location. There are obvious benefits of moving to London (there’s a Caribbean/bagel shop round the corner. That’s the best kind of slash, even better than Buffy/Willow).

Moving house can be a rich and fulfilling experience. It’s an opportunity to imprint a facet of your personality on to a physical space: changing the way a room looks to better reflect your own tastes. One hopes that moving home is a chance to upgrade, to make a fresh start in better surroundings. In these times of financial uncertainty many people may unfortunately find themselves downsizing, moving to poorer accommodation in an attempt to save cash. This is depressing, but even in this case moving home means you can start afresh.

When you move house, you are essentially creating order from chaos. Some of the order you bring with you from your own place: your furniture and your pictures and your telly. Some of it is discretely tucked away in your new house: that cupboard with an unexpected amount of space, that strange little nook in the kitchen that turns out to be the perfect size for the wine rack. This bit I like. The way all that clutter fits neatly in the aforementioned cupboard. The way all your wine bottles look in the aforementioned rack. The way the aforementioned wine gets you pleasantly shitfaced.

The problem is that there is just so much tuppin’ chaos about. And your efforts to unravel complexity and strife only create more. It occurs that I haven’t just lazily listed things for a while, so suck it up:


Things you didn’t plan for on your cheerful ‘New House’ list:

1. It’s filthy. The previous owners or the landlord will have spruced it up a bit, and this will serve to hide the grime until just after it is practical to clean it properly yourself i.e. as soon as your stuff is piled up in the middle of the floor. The obvious bits will be sparkling: oven door, the middle of the carpets, mantelpieces. But anything above eye height and anything below ankle level is going to be mucky and probably with an oddly unplaceable but distinctively unpleasant smell.

Sometimes the house will have been ‘professionally cleaned’ before your arrival. This brings to mind an adept and well practised grime-fighting team, sort of Kim and Aggie with uniforms and without the inherent bigotry. What you probably got is a collection of bored students, or a group of harassed first generation immigrants, rushing to their eighteenth job of the day to earn enough cash to keep little Yaakov in short trousers. You aren’t going to be cheerfully eating off the floor after their lacklustre performance. On the other hand, it might assuage some of the guilt you feel for leaving your old place in such a fucking state.

2. None of your stuff fits anywhere. It doesn’t matter how spartan you were when you moved, or how zen you felt when you took all your old tat to the charity shop. It doesn’t even matter that the space you’re moving in to is technically larger than the one you left. Everything you own is going to spend several days waiting morosely in the middle of the floor. You will fall over it. Several times. Unpacking is not simply a case of transferring your things from suitcase to drawer. Instead it has become, somehow, a three-dimensional jigsaw of hellish complexity and stress, like playing Tetris while ramped up on coke. The only way to ensure you will have a place to store all your shoes is to abandon them all and arrive barefoot.


3. It will take at least twice as long as you anticipated. ‘Oh, we’ll try and get the majority done over the weekend,’ you glibly inform your mother on the phone. Yes, you will try. And, young Jedi, you will fail. Miserably. By Sunday night you will still be craning your neck to see the TV around the boxes marked ‘Kitchen: Misc.’ And on Monday you will go back to work, and on Monday evening you will come back exhausted and look at the box and go: ‘No. Shan’t. You can’t make me.’ You finish moving in roughly three weeks before it’s time to move out.

4. No service providers care you’ve moved. Not a jot. One would think, seeing as it’s all your money in the bank, that said bank might be more forthcoming in updating their details. They won’t: they’re a bank. Instead they’ll fail to update your address at all the first time you tell them, then when you realise you haven’t had a statement in months they’ll change it incorrectly, so your neighbour gets a juicy opportunity to impersonate you on Amazon. And when you finally stagger to the bank and shout at someone they will obsequiously listen to you rant and agree that mistakes have been made and then demurely tap away the changes on their computer. And then the cash machine will eat your card on the way home so you’ll know not to fuck with them next time.


5. Utilities companies don’t want you to move. In fact, they will actively deny that you have done so, in order to keep charging you for the electricity the new tenant is using. Like lovers refusing to acknowledge the end of an affair, they will continue to write and call long after it has become appropriate. When it has become indisputable that you have truly gone for good, they will seek you out at the next property, to make sure that £2.13 you owe does not go unreturned, and possibly post their masturbatory tissues through your letterbox.


6. No one is going to forward you your post. Look at what you did with the old mail from your new house. You collected it up, like an organised and industrious person, then you left it in a prominent place on the table by the door, and when the pile got too big and you couldn’t stand you look at it any more, you sneakily recycled it all.


7. Sky aren’t coming. I’m sorry, they just aren’t. When you think about the service you are getting from them, it’s almost mind-boggling. Information is being coded into a digital signal: intangible, invisible, and amazingly fast; and is being fired up into space and then back down to your television. Imagine how impossible that would have sounded a hundred years ago. And the price you pay for this fantastic, incredible technology is to use up two day’s worth of holiday, and then have to chuck a sickie next week, and finally get it installed three weeks after you were supposed to, and after the technician has drilled several dozen holes in every wall of your house. And you’ll be bored to tears all day while you wait because, obviously, you don’t have Sky, and all your books are still in a box marked ‘Bedroom: Misc’ that you just can’t face opening.

8. You haven’t got the internet. Best get a TV licence. Oh, how do I do that without the internet? Is there a number to call? Actually, wait, the phone doesn’t work. Better set that up first. Um... wait, how do I do that without the internet? Oh you know what, fuck it, let’s just get a takeaway and sort it tomorrow. Right, where’s the nearest Chinese? Just Google... oh for shitting shit’s sake.

9. IKEA hates you. You would think, being a Swedish brand, that IKEA would be fairly liberal, and it certainly pretends to be. ‘Look, much if our furniture is customisable! And we sell Swedish food in the cafeteria! And the instructions are all pictorial, like Lego. Isn’t that so crazy and Scandinavian?’ In fact, IKEA operates much like a Fascist state: everything works fine as long as no one deviates from the set ideal.

‘You vill valk vhere ve tell you to valk! If you deviate from the display path you will end up back vhere you started, or unable to return to the section you need, as punishment for your transgression of zhese simple rules! Ve do not care if you only came to buy vun of zhose tissue paper lamp shades. You vill purchase ALL ze items from a display room, and you vill install ze furniture exactly as ve describe! If you do not, none of it will fit, or it vill look shit! All of our bookcases are unreasonable short, or too tall for ze average room! Zis is to remind you that you are simply a cog in ze IKEA paradise machine. Now nest, you worthless filth. And buy meatballs at ze end. From a can.’


10. That doesn’t work. That thing there, whatever it is. If it worked, they would have taken it with them when they left. If it seems to work, it just means that it’s broken in a way that isn’t immediately apparent, and will only become obvious when you’ve left it alone for a while. It leaks water. Or gas. Or it makes the room smell like burning. Or it might explode. Just leave it.

11. Sometimes making your possessions fit will require a tiny amount of DIY. DIY tasks so small and menial that you cannot in good conscience leave out the Y part. Drill one hole in wall, put in one rawlplug, put in one screw, hang mirror. You cannot justify getting a workman out for that. Even though you know, you KNOW, that you will drill one wonky hole in wall, stuff in incorrect rawlplug, be unable to get it out or get the screw in, dig the whole thing out with pliers and make a horrendous mess, and then in three months time when you’ve gotten over the experience the mirror and possibly the wall will fall over.

12. Every single lightbulb in the house will blow within the first week. Those filaments have been waiting, taut, stretched, aching, aching for release. Click, twang.

Artificial light is over-rated anyway. It gives you cancer, probably. Just put the wine rack somewhere you can still see it, and pray the light in the fridge holds out.

I might not be out of action that long, as I’ll try and sort some automatic updates until I finally get an internet connection (in three weeks). Till then, I’ve got moving chores to get on with (mostly playing Batman: Arkham City. I’m still basically unemployed).

Stay tuned for Verbal Slapstick: Fully Automated.

Notes on crashing your car

Moving home is always stressful, but I like to distil all the worry and menial labour that comes with trading domiciles into one super-woeful trip. By the time I’m finished packing the car resembles one of those impossibly difficult 3D jigsaw puzzles that menopausal women buy for adolescents at Christmas. This is not only a time saver, it also provides opportunity for a Viking funeral should you crash on the way to the new house. If ya gotta go, you may as well go surrounded by all your stuff, I say.

What it really means is that driving requires a little more care. Things that would normally not present much of a problem, something like a particularly sharp bend or a spot of sudden braking, now become more interesting challenges. Too much swerve on the corner and suddenly you’ve got half a leather office chair in your lap. Lots of people drive like they were taking part in a rally, but to my knowledge no rally racers fill the back of the car with mirrors and frying pans before setting off.

This all makes me a bit nervous, because I consider myself quite a careful driver. That statement sounds reprehensibly self-righteous, but it is born out of hard lessons and deep disappointment. A couple of years ago I had my first car crash, and since then I have been much more careful on the roads. You might think that this is a case of shutting the stable door when there’s an elephant in the room, or whatever the phrase is, and you’d be right. But if we learnt the lesson before we made the mistake, the mistake would not have been made. Probably.

If you tell someone that you have been in a car crash, they will immediately say: “Are you all right?” This, society teaches us, is the correct response to any tale of physical misfortune. Unless you are telling the story from a wheelchair or in a full neck-brace they can probably see that you look fine, but the statement has an implication of sympathy that is also required. (If you were telling the story from a wheelchair they presumably would have noticed, and begun the conversation with “Are you all right?” To which you would have replied, “Nah, I was in a car crash.”)

The conversation will then continue with further questioning, as your companion attempts to discover the particulars of your unhappy accident. At some stage in the proceedings enough of a picture will have been painted to allow the apportion of blame. This is the crucial step in the whole process, as it determines what course the rest of the conversation will run. If blame rests fully or partially with the driver being quizzed, then broad sympathy of the ‘what a bugger for you, on the other hand, it could have been much worse’ kind is in order. If blame can be completely attached to parties not present, then sympathy coupled with outrage is on the menu instead.

Here’s the thing though. It’s ALWAYS your fault, buddy. Let’s have a look at some of the most fundamental requirements of driving a car:

Number 1: You’re supposed to arrive at some sort of destination. This is the purpose for which cars were, in fact, designed. If you just drive around and around until you run out of petrol and have to stop you are technically driving, but it’s not really what the manufacturer intended.

Number 2: You aren’t supposed to hit anything. Anything at all. Ever.

So having a car crash contravenes at least these laws, and probably more besides. In fact there’s a pretty solid argument that’s says while involved in one, you aren’t really driving at all. You’re crashing, aren’t you.

No one likes to be blamed for anything, and for men in particular crashing your car is a basic failing. As previously mentioned driving is a masculine activity, and failing to drive effectively makes you look like a big sissy girl. And so most tales of automotive accident told by men allow for a certain amount of wiggle room, and other men respect that. Few blokes just come out and say. “I didn’t mean to crash into him… but then I crashed into him.”

My accident was the result of some scary driving from someone else (see, wiggle room). As I was pootling home one autumn evening someone overtook on the blind bend in front of me, nearly hitting the car immediately ahead of mine. The person ahead drove on for a few seconds and then suddenly emergency-stopped, which threw me completely off. My final thoughts ran something like this:

“Cor, that was close. Could’ve caused a nasty acci—OH MY COCKING CHRIST I’M GOING TO CRASH MY CAR!!”

I was not afraid; I can say that with absolute conviction. Instead I was angry, luminously angry at the world and myself. I knew in a split second that my little Italian car would be a write-off. It had crumple zones. Not just lines of weakness, or areas where crumpling might potentially take place- whole zones, dedicated solely to providing maximum crumplage. It was destined to fold up like a Ferrero Rocher in a lorry driver’s back pocket. I swore, fluently and eloquently, and then got out to see if the other driver was ok.

Police called, car moved, details taken, I did what everybody does after a stressful situation: I called me mum.

*CLICK*
“Hello?”
“Hi Mum, it’s me.”
“Hello, you. What’s up?”
“I’ve been in a crash, Mum.”
“Oooh, no! Was it an accident?”

(Only my mother needs to confirm that I am not intentionally ramming people with my car.)

“Yes, Mum.”
“Hmm… was it your fault?”
“No, see, there was this guy overtaking coming the other way…”

Wiggle room, see? What, you thought just because I wrote it I was exempt? Who am I, Jesus?

It's flatpacked with goodness!

Next week I am moving out. Warm, fuzzy Norwich calls me back for at least one more year, and so I am gathering my belongings and headin’ out East. This means I can finally escape from the tyrannically benign regime of my parents (how DARE they cook all my meals and give me lifts everywhere) and be my own man again. The next blog post will therefore be written in the smoking crater that was once my new living room, surrounded by a fallout of empty takeaways and bottle caps.

The best thing about moving into a completely new place, even better than the possibility you’ll move in next to a sex-starved thirty something millionaire businesswomen, is flatpack furniture. Yes, the humble flatpack provides the most complete satisfaction a man without missing hands can enjoy.

Unpacking flat pack furniture (or ‘flacking’ to the more experienced) is a manly art, right up there with urban warfare and driving a digger. It combines some of them most masculine activities from start to finish:

1. Driving to get the furniture. While driving itself can be viewed as a masculine enterprise (especially if you lean into the corners and make nneeeooow noises), it is the furniture store itself that provides a rarely visited environment for manly skills. Aside from the expected heavy lifting you may also be placed in charge of a large and unwieldy trolley, giving you the opportunity to powerslide a grossly overloaded vehicle through the populated intersections between aisles. Again, nneeeooow noises can be deployed for maximum drama.

2. Driving back with the furniture. Driving again, but this time, driving under adverse conditions. On the United Nations scale of Invention and Improvisation Under Adverse Conditions, fitting 50 square meters of wooden and metal surfaces into a 2 square meter Peugeot rates just under repairing your tank under concentrated artillery fire. Your friends or significant other, now jammed into the passenger footwell under 30 kilos of mdf, will surely agree, as will the policeman who pulls you over for having 2 meters of metal piping sticking out of your open boot, secured with a single frayed bungee cord. “Yes sir, extremely original use of folding down the seats. You’re practically in the A-Team.”

3. Assembly. You are the mighty creator! From chaos, you have made order, stopping only for a cup if tea every fifteen minutes and that brief period when you realised you’d put the first bit together backwards! The assembling of flatpack furniture gives the illusion of concentrated mental and physical effort, whereas all you are really doing is re-assembling an object that someone else has designed and then deconstructed in the simplest way. The instructions on furniture from IKEA are simple enough not to require words; instead they rely on the same visual code used by Lego, with an androgynous jelly-baby man standing by looking purposeful. You’re basically putting together a giant Lego kit, except hopefully it won’t smash to pieces if you put any weight on it.

4. Unnecessary tool deployment. OK, so technically all it needs is the Allen key that was provided in the box. Still, it’s better to be prepared, which fully justifies you lugging every power tool you own round to you mum’s, just in case. And if it needs a screwdriver, why not use an electric one? It’s a timesaver, not just an excuse to hold something that looks a bit like a laser gun and makes exciting noises when you squeeze the trigger.

5. Acceptance of thanks. Some people do not enjoy the construction of flatpack furniture. These poor, uninitiated souls are normally female, and must NEVER be allowed to do so, lest they discover its joys and realise there is absolutely no skill to it, and that there was really no need to invite you over and make you all those sandwiches. In the meantime you can simply accept their thanks with noble composure, and a look that quietly says ‘financial compensation would normally be expected for the type of service I have just provided, but I have let it slide because I am that sort of man.’

Flatpack furniture is much maligned as being lower quality than your standard, pre-assembled stuff. But I put together an extendable dining table and chairs last week and let me tell you, whoever designed that table was a tupping genius. Despite involving sliding parts and pivots in the actual build, it was so easy to assemble that even your common or garden ignoramus like myself could put it together. And as I sat on my new chairs, contemplating how hideous the sofa in my new living room is, I felt the stirrings of pride warming my buttocks. And I’ve still got a coffee table to go. All is right with the world.