I provide a brief update for my legions of adoring fans

People have been asking me impertinent questions about my flat!!! Here is an 'upate' in the form of key facts, one set of which includes the word 'cunt' when describing a freeholder called Mr Dave.

Fact 1

It is not sold, despite the Haart of Brixton board outside proclaiming that is indeed sold 'Subject to contract'. A wanker has been trying to buy it for his spoilt daughter for 5 months. His game is dropping the price now and then; all things considered, he has been playing a long and boring game for twenty thousand pounds (I have got off lightly, considering the 'recession').

The estate agents are also fucking idiots, as is his solicitor who retired and passed the file on to someone else before Christmas; said new solicitor has not yet opened the file.

Meanwhile, my own solicitor travels back and forth to Devon, and the freeholder - an unspeakable cunt called Mr Dave, to whom I will without a doubt send a poo in a box (or an anonymous card that says, in the finest hand, "You, sir, are a cunt") - is trying to charge four hundred pounds for the filling out of a questionnaire.

Happily, the words "we'll take it off the market and let it instead" had the required effect, and someone is now faxing someone else about something. My Canadian friends listen in horror when I tell them this story, and ask questions about English property law with round innocent Colonial eyes.

Fact 2

None of this really bothers me, as these things are always annoying and there is nothing I can do about any of it .

Fact 3

MonkeyMother, in an act of kindness that far exceeded her greatest act of kindness so far (i.e. delivering me to a grateful world), spent a great deal of time, energy and money finding a home for the cat, a retardo called Monster.

Monster was taken on by a cat rescue home and put up for adoption and is, from what I can gather, now living happily in Bromley with a deaf woman called Irene and eight other cats.

Fact 4

My upstairs neighbour, Twatboy, turned out to be a decent chap, helpfully providing copies of insurance, looking after my friend and tenant when the kitchen ceiling fell in, and generally being nice. My friend and tenant suggested that his transformation might be something to do with his newish girlfriend, who spends a lot of time in her pyjamas eating peanut butter on toast.

Fact 5

I have been asked whether I "have a ring". I have many rings, including one for attaching keys together in a convenient bunch. Is that what you mean?

Fear not, legions of adoring fans: I am not dead

...I have however been slightly preoccupied, what with Christmas in Amsterdam, New Year in London, packing up and selling my flat in London, coming back to Montreal and working in advertising during the worst recession since the dawn of time.

I will be back once I have dealt with various ISSUES. In the meantime, do let me know if there is anything particular you would like to know; I have no energy to think of 'topics' myself, you see.

Yours in -21 ("feels like" -35)

NWM

I have a conversation with a pathologist

Regular readers will be aware that I live with a French-Canadian veterinary research histopathologist, who once won a considerable sum of money playing the Quebec version of Jeopardy.

When he is at work, he looks at very thin slices of things under his enormous microscope. Sometimes he reviews academic papers (for e.g. at the moment he is looking at one about raccoon testicles), and sometimes, just sometimes, he has to perform an autopsy, i.e. cut an animal (usually a pig) up and see what is going on inside it.

He does not bring his work home, mainly because I work in the advertising and do not understand science. Even if he has been cutting up a pig, I am never aware of it; he wears overalls and has a nice wash afterwards, being careful to clean under his fingernails.

On Saturday, however, I walked across a frozen car park to meet the pathologist, who had been called to work to perform an emergency autopsy. From a distance of approx. 5 cars' length, I could see that there was a black dot on the end of his nose; a perfect circle, placed perfectly on the tip of his perfectly-formed nose.

Me: What is that on your nose?
Histopathologist: What is what?
Me: That black dot. Is it ... BLOOD?
Histopathologist: Oh. Probably.

In the next week's episode of CSI Quebec: We instal a sluice in the cellar, and introduce black pudding to Canada.

Conversations You Don't Often Have In Canada, #1

We are watching a British television programme.

Canadian: Why don't poor people in Britain eat the swans?
Me: You can't, only the Queen can eat swans.
Canadian: What?

In conclusion, if you would like to make a colonial laugh until they spit, make them search on the online for "Can I eat a swan?", and see what comes up.

In your search, you may find things like this, which contains references to choristers in scarlet, Swan Upping, livery companies, Elizabethans, torture chambers etc (none of which you get in the new country, and all of which sounds like it is made up when you have lived away from England for a year). Do read it all, if only for Jack Hill's contribution. Mr Lev of Yellowknife, Canada, will I am sure stand corrected!

For those who are interested, here is a picture of the Queen's Royal Swan Marker, David Barker:



Now there's a royal insight I'm sure you enjoyed!

Things You Hear People Say In Canada That You Probably Wouldn't Hear People Say In England, #4

2pm:

Me: We could go to the supermarket and just leave the stuff in the car for a bit.
Pathologist: Better not.
Me: Why? Are you worried about it FREEZING?
(Laugh for up to and including 10 minutes.)
Pathologist: Well, yes.

3pm:

I have walked from the car to the supermarket, which has taken all of one minute.

Me: My hair's crispy. Uh. Weird. Fuck me. Is it frozen?
Pathologist: Yes.
Me: Does that happen a lot?
Pathologist: Yes.

Notes:

1. It is -19
2. The pathologist - for those of you who are not regular readers!!! - is the French-Canadian for whom I moved to Canada.