mini-moan: unauthorised user - accessed denied.

They say an Englishmen's home is his castle, there is certainly no denying that you should feel safe and comfortable in your home, able to lock the door and keep the world out, your own personal fortress from the dangerous world in which we live.
While my new Laboratoire is under construction I am temporarily renting and what is really starting to annoy me is how the letting agent (or their 'trained workforce') feel they can just let themselves into the property whenever they wish. This morning I was informed that a plumber will enter the property on Monday to check the boiler is safe and on Tuesday they will let themselves in to 'inspect' the property. If I refuse they'll let themselves in anyway, I can't physically prevent them getting in as I'll be at work and they have a set of keys.

To me this is outrageous, I'm paying a large sum of money to live in this property, I'm probably paying the Landlord's mortgage, yet I have absolutely no privacy or rights. What if I was getting busy with a lady when the plumber bursts in to 'Check the pipes'? (Chance would be a fine thing) I guess it could be the most authentic porno ever made. Far more likely is I'd be eating cold baked beans straight from the tin while wearing nothing but my underpants.

mini-moan: turn it up to 'leven

Sometimes, well not me, but sometimes people gather in groups. It is common that when people gather in groups talking may occur, it's a concept that is alien to me but I read about it somewhere.

Where this falls apart is when somebody speaks really quietly. So quietly that you aren't actually sure they are talking but you're pretty sure they must be because their mouth is moving. It's of course possible that they are mouthing along with a song playing in their head. Perhaps they have a strange affliction that causes their mouth to move uncontrollably. These seem less likely than the possibility that they are just talking really quietly, so quietly that even Superman with his 'Super Hearing' would have to proclaim "What? Can you speak up please I haven't heard a word you've said".

Then you've got another group of people that just wont shut up. You are all stood jittering about (possibly desperate for the toilet) and one individual just keeps going on and on and on about something that you lost interest in before they even started talking. Surely they can see everybody in the group is pondering various scenarios in which they murder this individual, each scenario more gory and disturbing than the last. Yet they seem oblivious to how tedious they are and just keep talking.

mini-moan: griping and moan

How do they get away with it?
Surely it is illegal for Supermarkets to stick the words 'Ripen at home' on a punnet of Nectarines or a bunch of Bananas? More accurately it should read 'Stay completely unripe for a week and then suddenly become utterly rotten at home'.

I'm willing to bet nobody has successfully ripened any 'Ripen at home' fruit at their abode. Each day you pick-up that peach, give it a gentle squeeze, a breeze block would be softer, you return it to the bowl upset that you won't be supping on the sweet fruit. After several more days of this you approach the bowl, pick up the fruit and your hand is moist and slimy, you rotate the fruit and discovered it is now completely rotted and covered in mould.
After many years of this you've learned the error of your ways and instead decide to not bother ripening. You take a bite and crack 4 of your teeth on the granite like peach.
Finally you give-up. Fruit isn't that nice anyway, what's a bit of scurvy between friends?

mini-moan: it's my view

Can someone explain to me why when you get a splash on your glasses it's never at the edge out of sight but right in the fecking middle so all you can see is a big smeary splodge?
The law of averages would say that at least some of the time the splash would hit the 33% of your glasses that doesn't really matter because your peripheral vision isn't that useful. Yet 99.999% of the time it's always right in front of the pupil so you can't help but look through a blurry lens while searching for the nearest sink so you can give your glasses a wash.


It's almost as if the optician has smeared a substance right in the middle of my glasses that attracts debris and water just to be a twat.

mini-moan: show some restraint.

Today it was decided that rather than go through the hassle of cooking,  the new Laboratoire kitchen is still far from fully operational, dinner would be prepared by the experts at Toby Carvery. How can you go wrong? A choice of up to 4 meats and unlimited quantities of 8 different vegetables for a mere £5.95.  Plus for an extra £1.50 you can go 'King', that's extra meat an extra Yorkshire pudding and 2 Chipolatas. How could I refuse.
But refuse I should have done (I know, terrible grammar), for a meal fit for a 'King' it was not and instead of even more delicious meat I had even more tough, grisly and completely tasteless meat. My larger plate merely allowed me to choose more tasteless and undercooked vegetables. And rather than eating more I left at least 50% of the bland and badly cooked food on my magnificently proportioned plate.

So I warn my reader (I didn't forget the 's'), if you are ever asked if you want to go 'King' turn around and leave, for anywhere offering such a service will likely disappoint with spectacularly large portions of substandard and inedible food.

And I haven't even mentioned the 20 minute queue for the food that stretched across the building.

mini-moan: just can't see it

Today while checking my Facebook news feed I discovered that a colleague, who I will not name for his own privacy, had joined the Rachel Riley Appreciation Society (the maths genius from Countdown). Yes, I'll agree that Rachel Riley is an attractive woman, but does there really need to be a 'Rachel Riley Appreciation Society' which contains numerous pictures of RR wearing short skirts and dresses? With posts such as

Rachel Riley back in a dress showing off that tight little bum

I'm a man that appreciates an attractive woman, and maybe if I had friends I would discuss the attractiveness of women with them, but this is a bit much isn't it?
Perhaps RR is a really nice person, she's certainly very intelligent, so why focus on the fact she's reasonably attractive?

mini-moan: my friend al.

I've had a hard time of it lately, what with my Laboratoire being quarantined and the expense and upheaval of moving to a new Laboratoire. But why is it people go 'Are you alright?'? No actually, but now you've asked that question everything is fine and dandy. Pandas are dancing beneath rainbows while monkeys spoon ice-cream into my mouth and crocodiles massage my buttocks.
When you ask somebody that question all you do is annoy them. If you are really concerned about somebody take my advice. Sit down next to them and say nothing, when they ask you what you are doing reply 'I wanted some company', if they want to talk they will talk.

Can we please kill the phrase 'Are you alright?'?

This reminds me of an xkcd about parenthesis the ?'? looks deeply wrong.
http://xkcd.com/541/

mini-moan: fit for nothing

This would be a full moan but I don't feel up to it.
My, I feel really old, yes I am 647 years old, but now I officially feel old. Every single part of me aches, wrist, forearm, hip, shoulder, neck, knee, ankle and all due to a few games of Ten Pin Bowling.
What happened to me? When did I become so decrepit?
It seems like only yesterday I was gallivanting through corn fields (not really this is just a bit of poetic license) and today I am am crawling on my hands and knees screaming in agony when I lift a glass. Can't I just cuddle up on the sofa? Outside is overrated, it's full of diseases  and I believe it's dirty too, yes I can definitely see some dirt over there.

And a quick Laboratoire update. Things are progressing well and normal tgwmcm service should resume shortly.

mini-moan: stuart's process identity

For some reason I just keep doing stupid things. Not only do I do stupid things but I know in advance that the thing I am about to do is utterly unwise yet still I proceed.
It's bad enough doing something stupid without knowing the thing you are doing is foolhardy, but acting firm in the knowledge that it is utterly foolish and choosing to ignore every impulse that you should stop has to itself be an incredibly stupid thing, perhaps the most stupid of all stupid things.

Something to add to the list of stupid things that shouldn't be done;
Shouting at a Taxi driver that chose to block the road for 5 minutes and then being set upon by a lunatic. The most perfect of all moments punctuated by the phrase 'Leave it, he isn't worth it' (I felt like Phil Mitchell). Certainly not the smartest thing I have ever done, although not the most stupid thing I have done lately.
Perhaps I am destined to be a canine that howls in the arboretum.

mini-moan: untouchable

This is my first moan posted from the Android app so don't be too harsh if the spelling is even worse than normal.
Today I tried to open a bottle of sauce, to be precise it was a bottle of squeezy mayo. I say tried because it wasn't much of a success. The bottle had a plastic sealy thing that had to be removed and had a convenient pull tab. Well I pulled (which is highly unusual for me) but a thin film of plastic remained taunting me. I tried to removed it with my nails (which I am assured are creepily long), but the plastic layer refused to budge like a dog on a comfy chair. In the end I resorted to surgically removing the film with a sharp knife.
Is it really necessary to seal a bottle so well? When you buy an item from amazon does it need two rolls of parcel tape and a mile of bubble wrap and tissue paper?

mini-moan: i want to believe.

I wasn't expecting to moan today as I am taking some much needed time off while the reconstruction of the Laboratoire goes ahead (which is going to take a while) but today my blood has boiled so far over that I just had to post.

As the Laboratoire address is changing I had to set up a post redirection to ensure that any post sent to the old tgwmcm address will find it's way to the new tgwmcm address, you simply wouldn't believe how much fan mail I get (really you'd expect I'd get at least 1 item), but I do receive the occasional bill that requires my attention. So firstly I try to do this online, but perhaps for sensible reasons Royal Mail will only let you complete the online redirect process if your credit card billing address is the same as the old post address but my bank details were the very first thing I updated so they rejected the application for a redirect forcing me to drive to an actual Post Office (yes, they do still exist). When I get there I fill in the form hand over my passport and a utility bill with my old address and the woman behind the counter asked 'Where's your second utility bill'. What? So my passport and a utility bill aren't enough to prove my identity but a passport and two utility bills are? Those British passports sure are piss easy to forge but the technology to forge a gas bill and an electricity bill just doesn't yet exist, and forget about forging a phone bill, you must be living in a magical land if you think you can forge one of them.
Then the woman had the nerve to say 'It says you need two on the form', to which I replied 'The form that I just picked up 5 seconds ago, how could I have been so foolish?'