An Ode To Beige

After 4 years of complaining about the leopard print couch the ex and I decided we needed a more comfortable, more neutral and less offensively patterned couch.

No lounging fat Bollywood ex-starlet, draped in pink satin, eating rasgullas on our couch! She’d be getting the pointy end of my boot right on her plump backside out the door.

Now it would be a tall Scandinavian, all bony legs and elbows, wearing various shades of soft pastel, sitting compactly and making up an excel spread sheet.

The ex said authoritatively,

“I’m going to hire an interior designer for the living room because I’m too busy and have too many important things to do, to waste time finding a couch.”

I shrugged.

The ex doesn’t do things by halves, I have learned.

So we went couch browsing.

There were many catalogs of minimal sleek modernist furniture, in blacks, creams and various infinitesimally different shades of beige.

You know, people disparage beige so violently. The colour of boredom, symbolic of blandness, of tedium. Such a bad rap.

After 4 years of leopard living I really want some beige. I’m sick of that attention-seeking whore of a fat starlet lounging on my couch.

Naturally, and predictably, the search for the right furnishings began a serious of various heated debates. Heated debates that escalated into

“Well this is MY House! I’ll do what I like! If you don’t like it then you can fucking leave!”

“Fine! Then I’ll leave! If that’s what you want!

“YES!! I’ve told you that’s what I want!!”

“FINE!! But let me just tell you now – I”M NEVER COMING BACK!!”

Cue dramatic and cryptic email to our relationship counsellor at hand, Monty, asking if he knew anyone renting a room.

More tears, more threats, more couches.

It turns out the ‘I have no time to search for couches’ was a blatant misrepresentation. The ex then spent hours and hours debating (with me, who really didn’t want to spend this much thought on a couch) various couches, their merits, the space, the colour, measuring, re measuring and re-measuring the re-measuring.

There was a lot of re-measuring because I have a natural talent for getting numbers wrong and had read out the meters instead of the centimeters. (These things happen. What are you going to do?)

There were lists and more lists, and a list I had to re-write because of aforesaid talent.

Some more shouting, more tears. Even more couches.

We kissed and made up in the show-room of a terribly expensive furnishing place.

The lady selling the couch seemed a little thrown by my arrival and all the dramatic tension.

Luckily the ex loves sellers, and talks for hours to people selling. They get along famously. It’s a match made in heaven. A person willing and eager to shop, the ultimate consumer and a seller who knows her job.

Being a shop with real couches somehow dissipated all the tension. Well partly anyway. There were still whispered “If you want me to leave I’ll go!” statements made over various modernist coffee tables.

We eventually both agreed on a couch and an amazing fold out table that can be levered up and down to a range of heights.

Now the problem of getting rid of our leopard print couches.

After an first failed eBay listing, I had a crisis of confidence. Who in their right mind would buy a leopard print couch?

Let me tell you if you ever find yourself in a similar predicament - People from Essex.

The re-listing went off like a shot. The ex even sold the second couch privately. The Essex people came to pick up the couches. They sang its praises.

“My daughter saw the couch on eBay, and she said to me, I just have to have them Dad, she said. They are just lovely!”

They seemed surprised that we’d get rid of such quality seating.

I suddenly had this strange rush of pride on behalf of the couches. The couches I’d despised for so long would now be loved in their new home.

A single tear rolled down my cheek.

A belated sense of pride made me tell the man the ex’s mother made the couches in India.

He seemed only nominally interested.

They hoisted the couches into their van.

While I was getting sentimental over the couches and the lovely Essex people who were taking them into their home, the ex was eyeing them suspiciously (I could tell by the narrowed eyes), watching the street from behind the living room net curtains, twitching them back and forth, like some Punjabi Auntie spying on her neighbours children.

“Look at that girl! Haan haan… New boyfriend.”

She will fail exams.

I should not be doing my duty madam, if I do not tell you – Your child is a shameless.

I saw her wearing short skirt,

And talking to boys.”

The ex doesn’t like strangers in the house.

The ex then started checking the money they paid us, note by note to see if they were fakes.

On behalf of these nice people carting our couches off to Essex, I was offended.

The new couch didn’t arrive for a few days and I rather missed those ol’ couches. I felt sudden twinges of guilt now, that I had disparaged them so.

Finally the new couch arrived. Massive, a Goliath. Taking up nearly a quarter of the room. Phenomenally beige.

Ah beige! How you have been missed!

The ex used to sit on one leopard print couch, I on the other.

Now there is no delineation. We loll around on the couch freely, the wind in our hair, not a care in the world.

Goodbye old couches! May you enjoy your Essex home in the country.

Now the ex and I just need to agree on couch cushions.

The Old Sofa – We used this photo on eBay.

The New Couch. So unstained, so virginal. How long will it last?

View from the doorway. The table will soon follow. I’m not allowed to sit on it without a cover. Ever.

Public Post To The Man Who Cannot Aim His Pee

Angry message to the man who doesn’t / can’t or just wont lift the seat and then peed all over it.

I know who you are.

I saw you walking away quickly from the scene of the crime.

Don’t tell me you were walking that fast because you had an “important meeting”.

I KNOW a hit and run when I see one.

I’ve had the misfortune of walking into a loo just after you’ve done your filthy little business,

I’M LODGING A COMPLAINT YOU FUCK!!

The history of the Loo I did ages and ages ago for a magazine in Bombay. I never got the final print so I don’t have the copy that should be inserted in-between the piping. Boo hiss.

Sunday Mid-Morning Aggravation

Highly aggravated this morning.

The semi-new cleaner has gone AWOL. (I don’t actually know what that means, but I’m assuming it means missing. I don’t feel like googling. I enjoy the gamble. Fingers crossed.)

Her handler can’t find her.

Handler is trying to arrange another cleaner. No luck so far.

So the ex asked a friend if their cleaner was available. (We will really do anything to avoid cleaning)

If her cleaner is free I’m going to have to tell the other cleaner we’ve found someone else or softly softly phase her out.

Which fills me with guilt because the handler is really nice. (Never met her, text only – But I prefer that kind of relationship.)

The cleaner I could live without.

In the morning the ex is Dr. Jekyll under the sheets, and Hyde the minute we get out of bed.

There’s a lesson here somewhere, but I really can’t spend all day in bed.

So far, this morning, here is a compressed list of the various scoldings:

1. Three and a half ants dared invade the kitchen. It must have been something I had done. Who else could it be? The ex could never bring in ants.
2. The toothpaste tube is almost empty. Why didn’t I replace it?
3. There is one plate in the sink. I need to clean it.
4. The bedspread needs changing. I never change it.
5. We make the bed. We squabble over covering the duvet.
6. Who’s starting the washing machine? Why isn’t it me?

Numbers 1-4, I was willing to let slide. (Even though 1. was seriously idiotic. Promise. Swear. There were actually 3 ants.)

But by number 6. I felt like this:

Ready to gnaw off someones face.

I did a cat-hiss at the ex, but that was during the 1-4 ‘let it slide’ phase.

I do a good cat-hiss – It needs to come from the back of the throat to have real depth to it.

Once I sneaked up behind this cat in Bombay and let out my best cat-hiss. (I was an adult.) It leapt up nearly a foot in the air. Best one ever.

However I’ve written my post, crawled down off the ceiling, drunk my tea, the ex has gone off to the Motherland (Harrods this time, which never fails to lift the mood), we had a quick post-squabble cuddle, it’s a sunny sunday and I just might spend all day faffing about, pleasantly colour correcting my photos.

(Even though I need to study for this Life in the UK test which frankly, offends me. No UK resident could pass this. The hypocrisy of the UK BA is really something.)

I took the photo below at Angel tube. It’s a poster for one of those odious books where a serial killer does some stuff to a cute chick.

Ugh. I’m sick of those books. But the comment scrawled on the poster cracked me up.

Capitalism of course! Dummy!

An Occupy London protester clearly.

Ona Na What’s My Name? It’s Ona, Stupid.

The on-going saga to get a flat the size of a postage stamp cleaned on a weekly basis. 

So Ona, our second cleaner turned out to be fairly flaky.

She said she was ill (and I’m sure she was) but her doctor appointments always happened to be on Saturday mornings.

The cleaning management company occasionally rallied to arrange temps but most of the time I just had to bear the brunt of the ex hissing venom at me at 9 in the morning when the cleaner had failed to show up, yet again.

“It’s your job to arrange the cleaner! Why isn’t she here?? I don’t care if her kidney is infected! Blah blah blah!”

The ex an I saved our relationship by getting a cleaner. We have totally different ideas of how often to clean and how often is too often, so cleaner issues turn critical very quickly.

On a side note:

This is such a desi wifely whine. More specifically it’s a very middle-class desi whine. Middle class Indians are always complaining about their cleaners.

Meet any woman running a house and she’ll give you a long rant about the cleaner or how the cook spoke to her very rudely the other day. (The cook and the driver are second and third in line of things to complain about.)

“Can you believe it? So rude she was. So I told her she can go look for another job if she speaks to me like that.

“And she always over cooks the daal. How many times I’ve shown her how to cook the daal but she still over cooks!”

“Plus I told her not to put salt in it. Every time too much salt. She never even tastes.

“Now the driver is upset because the cook got a bonus but the driver didn’t get the bonus.”

“Then the cleaner never jadhoos properly either. I always have to jadhoo the bathroom myself. She just does fut-fut-fut and thinks it’s done. Oof ho! Bus. What to do?”

“Haan haan, it’s so hard to find good cleaners… but have I told you what MY cleaner did…?”

In fact never ask an Indian housewife about the either the cleaner, the cook or the driver. It’ll never stop.

So to get back to my wifely whine, I’ve been designated as ‘cleaner manager’. My duties are to supervise and organise. (Catchy no?)

I’m expected to keep them up to scratch somehow. Inspect under the sofas, chase them around the 2 and a half rooms we live in. (Even if I did chase them around the flat my idea of “its clean” is clearly not going to match the ex’s expectation. So my supervision is really fruitless.)

The problem is the ex is the type of person who’d put of a pair of white kid gloves and run their hands down the furniture to test if it has been dusted properly.

So naturally the ex was enraged with the general incompetence of the temporary cleaners who came to fill in for Ona.

One of the temps dropped a painting off the wall. (Didn’t break, thank god. It was one of the ex’s tacky pieces of touristy shite. All hell would have broken loose.)

She then used the sulphuric acid that’s meant for unclogging drains to clean the oven. The ex caught that one.

I caught her cleaning a framed wall mirror violently and stopped her before she knocked that off too.

She then dusted the side tables by removing all the knickknacks and balancing them on the arms of the leopard print couch. The ex caught that one again.

In desperation I asked my boss at work if he knew a cleaner. This is the same boss who I once smoked a doob with. The fun one.

So he recommended a girl, so I called her and she told me she would send someone over one Saturday morning for a test run.

First day, the new girl (Elina, or Elita or something. Couldn’t quite hear her and now I can’t ask again) broke the power mop and left without telling us. Turns out she doesn’t speak any English.

We aren’t allowed to call her directly and can only contact her via her handler.

That aside, I’m still feeling optimistic.

Lit Windows

Buildings at Twilight

Essex Road with moon & Venus

The Couch Is Out To Get Me

The Couch. Look at it just glaring at me. Defying me to drop something on it.

The good thing about this print is that it camouflages cigarette burns very well.

This is similar in theme to “The Goverment is out to get me“. A general paranoid whine, I suppose.

This fucking couch has been out to get me from day one.

First of all, this is no ordinary couch.

This is couch is upholstered in a Leopard print fabric. (As you can see.)

Like the couch of some over-weight, worn-out, Bollywood B-grade movie star.

Imagine her lying on it, draped in a hot-pink satin fabric, while eating rasgullas. When she runs out of rasgullas she claps her sticky hands together to summon her man Friday, Sreekanth to bring her some rasmalai instead.

The ex’s mother sent us these couches. She had them specially made and then shipped across the seas all the way from the Punj.

Not satisfied with the Leopard print, these couches also have cushion covers in a soft brown suede fabric.

Suede! The most easily wrecked of all materials. It’s not even in a dark colour. It’s light brown!

It’s like the couch is purposely trying to entice me to sit on it, so I can spill something and have the ex subsequently murder me.

Just look at it. Doesn’t it just seem like its saying,

“Oh look sit on me, just have a seat…no no I won’t stain my pristine, suede-ness, don’t worry beta ha ha. Of course I’d never lie to you, I’m your friend…”

Such a fucking liar! I try (as much as possible) to sit on an expendable cloth that covers the couch.

This is not to protect the couch, but to protect me from the wrath of the ex. This couch stains just by breathing on it.

“Come come, eat a meal on me. No, no don’t worry! If you spill anything and it’ll come right off!”

Nothing comes off suede. It is the devil’s fabric. All the furniture in hell is probably upholstered in suede and should you find yourself there you will spend all eternity worrying about what you may or may not have spilled on it.

Also I feel this eerie growing superstitious paranoia that the ex’s mother purposely sent this couch to ‘get me’. This couch has given me many heart palpitations in the past.

Once I was just sitting on it, innocently minding my own business… and drawing with a ball-pen (Reynolds – still good) and I accidentally swiped my hand across and a little black mark went on one of the pillows.

I don’t remember a lot of what happened later but there was some shouting and screaming and threats of,

“You better fix the couch! I mean it! You better fix it!!”

and

“I DONT CARE!! JUST FIX IT!”

I get that a lot.

The ex accuses me of ruining everything.

Which is ironic. My mother used to say that to me.

I accidentally broke one of her ceramic photo frames (one of my mother’s many collections) and in response she said very melodramatically,

“FINE! FINE! JUST BREAK EVERYTHING!! RUIN EVERYTHING!! I CAN NEVER HAVE ANYTHING NICE IN THIS HOUSE!!!”

HERE!! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW??”

On ‘HERE’ my mother grabbed another frame and smashed it on the ground. (Very silly.)

So the next time I broke a ceramic painted plate, (I was yawning and stretching. It happens.) to avoid any more tantrums, I hid it in my underwear drawer and then spent hours painstakingly, (and surreptitiously) glueing it together in the forlorn hope that she’d never even notice.

Of course she found it in my underwear drawer (I should have hidden it under the underwear), but I’m comforted by the fact that it took her a few days to find it. She didn’t have a tantrum. I think by now she’d grown accustomed to the idea of her unfortunately clumsy child.

Back to the couch and its vindictive campaign to get me:

Another time, I was sitting on the couch, yet again, harmlessly minding my own business, when I happened to notice a small burn on one of the suede cushions.

I started having cold sweats. I was pretty sure I didn’t make it. But if I didn’t warn the ex in advance, guaranteed I’d get blamed for it.

So I had to grit my teeth, steel my nerves and call the ex at work.

I prepped the scene with my stellar opening,

“OK. Baby. Don’t get mad. I have some bad news…”

Always open with the bad news, (the good news is that I didn’t do it)

“…OK…”

*uncertain pause*

“…what is it?”

“Uhm, I noticed a black mark on one of the cushions…

“…butIswearitwasn’tmeIdidn’tdoititwasalreadythere
motherswearonmylifedon’tbemadIloveyou.”

The ex must have been in a more than usually benevolent mood, because I passed. Whew.

Recently I was washing the cover I usually sit on (a rare moment of domestic responsibility) and then sat on the couch after painting something, and before I knew it a smudge of white acrylic paint went on one of the cushions. (which just goes to show you how unrewarded I am for my domestic responsibility).

It was after so long! And I had been so good! I really tried, really really REALLY, not to spill anything on that couch.

This is why I’m convinced, that it’s a curse. The couch has it in for me.

The ex was mad, and I couldn’t even say anything to defend myself. I mean, I don’t even know how the paint got on the couch. It wasn’t even on me this time. It must have been on my laptop and I didn’t notice.

Now I have to try scraping it very gently with a sharp scalpel in the hope the white paint will flake off.

It’ll probably leave a patch. (sigh)

Suede is an evil, evil fabric.

High Tea or The Picnic: Picking Up Where I Left Off

Work in Progress with Jonathan Ross playing on my laptop

This isn’t a new piece. In fact it’s been lying around incomplete in my folder for ages.

I stopped drawing for nearly a year. Not sure why. I just was reading a lot of Barbara Cartlands mostly. Inhaling them like they were cocaine, (Just to be clear I don’t, haven’t and won’t ever inhale real cocaine. I don’t approve of anything stuck up anyones nose after the time my brother got a red crayon stuck up his and I laughed so hard I cried) and I suppose I took a sabbatical.

I wish I was a kept woman (like some people I know), then all I’d do is draw all day. But I imagine that system only works if you’re willing to breed or happen to be a good housekeeper. One thing is certain: I am neither willing to breed nor can I housekeep.

So I’ve picked it up where I left off. Sometimes my focus wavers a little. I come home from work and find myself frittering away 2 hours on the interweb.

It’s been quite frustrating drawing on this desk. Right now the desk is smaller than the drawing. Paint brushes roll off it, pens drop off it, my ear phone cables keep getting yanked. Nothing fits on it and painting in certain places that don’t fit on the table (like the corners) are a right pain.

I have to turn the paper vertically and move the desk and chair back so the drawing isn’t rammed into the wall. The ex keeps yelling that I’m taking up too much room – It’s both aggravating and uncomfortable. There is a lot of huffing and puffing now and then.

Do other people have these problems? How do they cope? Is it just me?

I’ve developed a serious case of ‘desk-envy’. People post pictures of their desk – Spacious tables with place for their printers, scanners, pen holders, brush holders. Plants! What seems like the height of luxury to me now.

Regardless of these small, trifling difficulties and my complaints (At least I haven’t lost my ear or gotten syphilis from a life-model) I’ve resolved to finish all my incomplete work before I start anything new (So hard!)

That includes the first 2 Goddesses and this one. Then I can start some other ones.

Nearly there! I just need to paint all the tables white and maybe touch up the sky.

Trying to finish it tonight or tomorrow.

Alrighty, back I go to the discomfort desk.

Jerez, Spain

Elegantly placed chairs in the coutryard

Part 3 of my belated holiday posts. Part 1  & Part 2a & Part 2b here.

I’d like to lodge a formal complaint against the 3rd hotel on our trip.

It’s called the Hacienda San Rafael. The ex saw their website and was immediately smitten.

Entrance (or exit depending on your point of view) to the Hacienda

Hibiscus growing on the walls

Here’s the hitch.

They charge over 300 pounds per night. THREE HUNDRED FUCKING POUNDS!!

Holy Virgin Santa Maria Plaza de Ponce Cruz Castillo!

I vetoed this hotel from the start. They can take their ’boutique’ and shove it up their ass. A 300 pound a night hotel is aimed at suckers and the parvenu. (I re-learned this word recently.)

I said I would pay what we would have if we had gone to a nice mid-range hotel, since the ex desperately wanted to stay here and it was frankly entirely out of my budget. I put my foot down for any more than 1 night, though.

Indians cannot be such maha-suckers just because of a good website. I mean, really. We can make it at home.

A stray nudist. The ex was slightly scandalized. Child willys are so weird looking.

Another view through arches. Moorish architecture is one of my favourites.

Now here’s my problem with this hotel :-

It was stunning. An undeniably, stunning, private villa converted into a boutique hotel.

A dream of a villa. In fact a cupcake wrapped in a dream, muffled in a cloud, cushioned by another dream.

Silly pooch

The dog took a little dip in the pool. it was very entertaining.

But at 300 pounds per night you’d expect some value for money. The very least I expect, is an excellent breakfast.

You don’t expect them to have implement a budget airline policy! I was both offended and annoyed.

The breakfast was 1 croissant and some coffee/tea. That was it. (I’m outraged. Even now – and we came back from Spain in April). You get nothing but a pretty place to sleep at this place.

If you wanted more you needed to pay. There was nothing that wasn’t an ‘extra’.

Such a Ryan Air establishment policy. It infuriated me.

(Look I don’t expect everything included, but the lunch menu had small portions, the breakfast was stingy and everything was just over-priced. Like I said, just a good inclusive breakfast would have done it for me.)

Our meagre lunch. These were mains too. I was still hungry after this pitiful offering.

They even had their own shop selling over priced olive oil and indian exports (Anokhi produts - let me just say that €300 for a kurta is NOT OK. You rip-offs.)

The ex claimed that the people who can afford to go here wouldn’t care about paying for anything on top.

Some might not, probably. But most people would I should think. These people didn’t get to that level of richness without being a little £££ savvy. Plus I’ve stayed in enough 5 star hotels (parents), which have had great service and more importantly an amazing breakfast. It’s the least they can do considering you’ve had to take out a loan to pay for the bill.

If you wanted to eat dinner at the place, you had to have the set menu at the hotel restaurant. Since this villa was a converted farmhouse/stable in the middle of nowhere, they really had a good racket going. (The food was excellent I will admit).

Anyway, breakfast was very kunjoos. Dinner for one night was fine. If you like expensive hotels for no other reason than that you have money to burn I highly recommend this place.

So here some more holiday photos. I tried to value for money out of photographing the heckings out of this hotel.

They should fucking hire me.

Click the button below to view the slideshow.

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Open Letter To The XFactor M&S Advert

Russell, that Adam and Joe genius fan wrote an open letter to the Marks & Spencers XFactor Christmas Advert.

Open letter to M&S XFactor Advert by Russell

The XFactor UK is a modern-day all singing-all-dancing Panto. A curse, a blight, a terrible pox upon our TV.

Louie, plays the camp Panto Villain. Tulisa, the pretty bitch. (Openly swaying votes and generally giving contradicting idiotic advice one week to the next.)

Kelly, the black mama, snapping her fingers and saying “honey” and “baby” far too often.

Last but not least, our cut-price Simon Cowell: Gary from Take That

And let’s not forget the utterly revolting ‘singing’. (‘Singing’ is frankly, far too complimentary a word.)

God bless you Russell!

I’m So Fired

Uh oh. Job center!

I dropped A2′s (that’s one of my bosses) new iPad 2 on the ground while testing an app on it, and cracked the screen in a corner.

A1 (the older brother, and big boss) was shockingly gleeful about it. (Apparently A2 is as clumsy as me, and has been so since he was young).

I was horrified and terrified at the same time. Large numbers of what this could cost floated in front of my eyes.

I started to furiously twirl my hair in anxiety.

They were both nice about it and didn’t shout, (A2 swore under his breath and vented his rage at his phone company instead, since they didn’t provide him with insurance) so I feel dreadful, and guilt ridden.

Praise be to the internet. It saved my conscience from gnawing at itself.

I managed to find a place that will replace the screen and back case for a pretty reasonable amount (less than the cost of a new iPad 2, and less than the time I burnt the kitchen exhaust and had to fork out £350 to replace it so I am actually relieved.)

If A2 can’t get his phone company to fork up I’ll send it off. They cab fix it in under 48 hours and post it back.

Yay. (Imagine that ‘yay’ said in the doleful accents of one attending a funeral)

I’d better not buy myself anything for a little while. I was contemplating getting an iPhone but knowing my wretched talent for dropping things, thats just another route to Brokenville via Doh! town

The week before I accidentally forwarded an email to a big client with some details my boss didn’t want a client to have. (Which they now have thanks to me. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.)

The week before that I got chewed out by the client for a site going on live without search engines being blocked. (FUCK!!)

Then the client belatedly realised that the content on the servers was accessible if you knew the exact link (Stress on the word ‘exact’), and flipped out because

“Hackers could potentially steal it and post all the content online!!”

(It’s been on there for a year and no one stole anything, so slight over-reaction but whatever, it was my mistake.)

So it’s been a fairly error ridden 3 weeks. I wonder if I’ll get fired.

I’ve been pretty good until now, but these seem like enormous, weighty crimes. (Even though A1 is not remotely concerned with the iPad droppage)

And then there was this other big mistake when I was in the office, and I was thinking about something on a project and I just turned my computer off, left the office and went home. I didn’t turn the lights off, and I left the door wide open.

I guess I forgot I was the only one in the office.

I have these absent minded turns now and then. (It was one of those that got my kitchen burned. Dangerous they are.)

The security guard scolded me the next morning. He had to come in and turn the lights off and shut the door (couldn’t lock it)

He’s my friend now. We had a nice chat at lunch. He’ll be visiting Delhi over Christmas. He visits Bombay often he tells me. He likes Juhu.

This photo below cheers me up.

The Munt sent it to me.

Don't you love the seed tears? And don't miss the pubic hair. Nice craft work I must say.

Happy Halloween!!

I was never destined for house work

The cleaner went off on holiday.

I’ve devastated.

The ex got the cleaner to effectively save our relationship from imploding over cleaning standard differences.

The ex had to break the news to me gently well in advance of the coming Saturday.

This followed by a series of ‘reminders’  (read as ‘threats’) that come what may we WILL be cleaning this weekend.

I need a gradual build up to resign myself to this odious cleaning business.

The ex and I democratically negotiated a division of labour.

One big room + one small room each, 30 mins per room.

So it is a beautiful sunny day, and I have just spent the past 1.5 hours cleaning.

I discovered that ages ago I spilt some mystery liquid behind my side-table that had subsequently congealed with the dust and dirt to produce a nearly unmovable matt coating on the floor that the cleaner had neatly never bothered with.

Then the drawer of the solid wood side table (which is hinged at the bottom, like a flap) dropped neatly on the top of my foot.

I hopped around in pain, screaming silently.

I hope the cleaner comes back soon.

Fuck, I think its broken.