The Girl Next Door.

It’s not so much about her, it’s more that she is. OK. A little background. I live in the top floor of The House That Munt Built. This floor is split, front to back in 2 with a small corridor between. The front half is one big room, but the back half has been split into two smaller rooms, one of which mine. The problem is that the partition wall between these smaller rooms hasn’t got any sound insulation in it. This means that I can pretty much hear everything that goes on next door if I am being quiet. More worrying, they can thus hear everything that I am doing if they are quiet…

The Chef used to live the other side of the wall and he has a loud, deep voice and loves reggae music with massive amounts of bass. He’s not the smartest cookie in the jar and would always turn his hifi on, realise that it was on really loud and turn it down for me. Very considerate, but bearing in mind this was usually at 2am, the damage was already done. He worked the evening shift and so could have it up very loud during the day. Not playing music at 2am was not an option I ever managed to convince him to try. I even leant him my headphones, but remembering to plug them in took longer than it too to turn the music down from it’s daily setting.

So when he moved to the big room across the hall I was ecstatic. He’s been there a few months and life was good.

But now a woman (girl?) in her early 20s has moved in. I’m sure she is nice enough and all, but as Jilted John would say… ‘ere we go 2, 3, 4…

Face Fungus

Just recently there has been much twittering of the Louchetache. I’m not sure who started it, but I know that several of my followees have been on about it for a while. Since I hadn’t shaved in a week or so, I decided that, since I couldn’t think of a good reason, not to grow one, I would grow one. Common sense and self respect would mean that it wouldn’t stay on my face for long, but it would be sculpted at least briefly and just as importantly, photographed in situ.

So, I grew a beard. I’m sorry that I’m not smiling in this picture but I was having serious problems not grinning like a Cheshire Cat a the thought of what was to come…

But before I got to the required horseshoe, Frank Zappa, or more entertaining 70s Pornstar style, I thought that I’d try the good old, standard goatie. By the way, I have decided to keep some chest hair in these shots since it adds nicely to the 70s Pornstar look, I think.

Now, keeping a straight face was almost impossible at this point…

And you really can’t imagine what was going through my head next…

But since things were going from silly to stupid, there was just one more that I had to try…

I won’t do the accent…

And then even that went…

Now, this is the first time that I have been clean shaven this year. I shaved once last year too, but I’m trying not to make a habit of it. I am now desperate for my stubble to return and make me look vaguely human…

The Great Royal Barbarian

I was just having a quick gander over at my good friend Mister Ro when I noticed that he has made himself into a quite dandy super hero. Not to be out done, I have decided that I too can become one of the finest ever to roam the planet dishing out justice and generally saving anyone that happens along and falls into some form of peril.

And here I am. The one and the only The Great Royal Barbarian. I didn’t pick the name, he must have chosen that himself. Erm, that’d be my alter-ego.

So, anyone wanting to make their own super hero had better follow this link to The Hero Factory.

Ruyter or Rötger

In 1667 Ferdinand Bol painted the portrait of Michiel de Ruyter. It looks like this.

Sometime later, on 3rd March 2009, I took the following photo of Rötger, one of the Germans that I work with.

Rötger has taken a cut out of the painting and pasted it onto his pass. It’s a good enough likeness that he gats away with it on a daily basis. We like that.

Do the clicky thing if you want to see how good the likeness is in more detail.

And yet there is more…

I spent the weekend with my kids at my sisters house. Whilst there we made some Rocky Road – White Edition. I had some valuable advice from my good friend at Feeding the Lions but I was worried that we had stuffed way too many bits into the choccy, however, the result was actually wonderful. I did have to put it into the freezer for an hour but the result was even better than my Rocky Road – Dark Edition.

This is how we did it…

Chop up the bits…

Mash the biscuits

…

Melt the gook…

And then put out to cool…

Just because I can and did…

Well, the results are finally in. It’s a hit. My Rocky Road  Dark Edition was great. Actually it still is. Just. There are a few pieces left, but this is mainly because I was away for the weekend and didn’t take it with me. anyway, it’s fab and sticky and chocolaty and gooey and tastes scrummy, though I do say so myself.

Just Because I Can…

Friends of mine have all be making Rocky Road so, not to be out done, I too have decided to make it. Nothing to do with being able to stuff my face with lots of choccy goodness tomorrow, no, this is to prove that I too can tackle the mastery of complex cooking and win.

This is where the basic recipe came from, this is where I first heard about it and this was the other person to make it before I decided to join in.

It has been placed in the fridge now that it is cooler and tomorrow it will be iced and tested. Just a little bit…

This is how it progressed…

Tomorrow the photos of the finished article…

The House That Munt Built

Living in this house has proved an experience. The last time that I lived in a place like this I was a student over 20 years ago. I live in a rented room for a year in 2006/7 but it was a well managed building and whilst the clothes drying facilities left a little to be desired and I could meet all sorts of people walking from my room to the toilet/shower (in various states of attire) the rest of it was perfectly acceptable. But this house has had all sorts of surprises.

But having been here for six months now we have finally got to the bottom of most of the problems. It seems that the owner wasn’t really very interested in letting the building but a couple of guys were very keen to rent it from him and then rent the individual rooms out to us. We shall call these middle men, for want of a better phase, Dumb and Dumber. Now Dumb thought that he could spend a little money making a few minor improvements to the place and Dumber would do all the leg work collecting the rents. Obviously they would have to lay out a little cash in the first place but they were bound to rake it in again once they had tenants. They would charge each tenant a commission of 1 month, a 1 month deposit and then a monthly rent. The commission they would keep since they had no deal with the owner regarding that and the monthly rent they would split with the own on a percentage basis. Excellent plan.

So they put in a basic kitchen, 5 basic showers and laminate on all the floors. They also put in a partition wall in one of the larger rooms. Must have cost them ten thousand Euros or so I guess. They quickly filled all the rooms, probably making four thousand Euros back with the commission straight away, leaving only six thousand to recoup from the monthly rentals.

But you see, it appears that they weren’t too smart with their negotiations on the monthly rents. The deal that they negotiated with the owner was, you’ll like this, one hundred per cent to the owner and the rest for themselves. And this is why our requests for a doorbell, a security light and for them to fix the dryer went unheeded.

But since we complained to the owner so much he has kicked out Dumb and Dumber and has promised to do all our requests himself. Since he is getting about five thousand Euros a month in income from one building, he has obviously decided that this is worthy of a little more of his attention. We are getting new contracts and workmen have already been round to make estimates for the work. We have a doorbell and a security light. I’m going to get soundproofing between me and the next room (which, luckily is currently vacant) and there will be new showers installed and a new kitchen.

So even though the washing machine broke recently things are, on average, on the up. We have a new tenant downstairs that I met today and workmen have started appearing and doing things. The central heating is still very suspect and we await a new washing machine, but in general the rest is ok.

Fingers crossed.

All I have to do now is ask the council to work normal hours and not the current 6:30am to half past midnight. I’m a little less worried about having to stay an extra three months now.

Spot the Moron

Our washing machine has broken. It’s been broken for over a week. It has been looked at, condemned and a new one is on order. All well and good except that my washing pile is beginning to give me funny looks. We have a tumble dryer in the house too. When the man came to fix the washing machine he managed to fix the tumble dryer that had been broken for 6 months. Apart from the poetic irony of that, it’s the possibility that the washing machine could take just as long to fix that concerns me.

Under the tumble dryer we have a second washing machine. This is owned by the inhabitants of Room C. It was here before I moved in and they told me that it doesn’t work either. The owners use our washing machine bringing the total number of adult users of the poor thing to 10. Since we are all getting desperate for washing facilities, I thought that I would ask the owners if I might have a look at their machine and see if I could fix it. I looked at it. I fitted a plug. It works now. Each night I cry just a little longer…