Shit. So, left the woman I was with and moved back to my home town. Spent a week living on the sofa of a friend who has Diogenese Syndrome and doesn't remove rubbish from his house. Weirdly, my friend is called Zeno and was named after Zeno the Stoic, who was a student of Diogenese. Couldn't make this stuff up.
So I'm now living in a typical slummy flat in a slummy part of town for three weeks till a smaller flat in a slightly better but still quite slummy part of town becomes available. I am typing this sitting cross-legged on the floor with my PC set up on my coffee table as I have no other suitable furniture and I'm cold because I can't work out how the heating works.
Tonight will be the first night I have slept in a bed with a sheet, duvet and pillows in over a week.
Money is fast running out but I went out today and invested some of my small remaining cash in a Pay-as-you-Go internet dongle. For those of you reading in parts of the world these haven't arrived in yet, it is internet on the same terms as Pay-as-you-Go phones. GBP15 gets you 30 days of use up to 2GB but when either the time or the allowance runs out, it just stops working rather than start charging you for the extra. Sadly, at this current point in my life, this is the best option.
Think the car is going to have to go. Between UK petrol prices, GBP50 a month insurance and tax due at the end of the month, much as I will detest having no transport, it seems the only feasible option.
As I have the internet, I believe I now HAVE to get a TV licence, even though I don't watch television as it is POSSIBLE to watch TV over the internet and the licence is required to OWN equipment capable of receiving the signal. This means that if you had a VHS player from the 1980s in a box in your loft, you are legally required to pay GBP145 per year to the BBC.
Need to get a job pronto. Claiming benefits in the UK is now so much harder than working. While this is a good thing, of course, it galls a bit that after ten years of putting into the system, when I need to take out it involves this much pratting about. It seems that if you are on contributions-based benefits rather than income-based benefits (i.e. you've worked and paid NI), the process is so much harder. Mad, fucked up and topsy turvy world we live in.
Man, that rant felt good. I know this isn't my personal blog space but letting off steam to the community here is very theraputic.
Must rebuild life now. We have the technology (I hope).
Anyhoo, I love to pour my shit if I have the smallest opportunity. So thanks for that, and I hope making a good thing for me consoles you a bit (or at least you can rate down my post now....)