The God of Small Broken Things

I must have done something to anger the god of inanimate objects this week. My shaver broke, leading to a one-man designer stubble revival. The back keeps falling off my new shiny phone. The Netgear wireless router decided it didn't want to be wireless any more. Worst of all, the washing machine broke down. Now, I wouldn't normally count that as a noteworthy occurrence - I mean who wants to read about broken white goods? - but it did lead to an interesting adventure: going to the launderette.

I haven't been to a launderette since I was at uni. In those days, I would wait until I was down to my very last pair of pants before going. (My last pair of pants, which were a Christmas present, possibly from my mum or Auntie Jo, had a picture of Father Christmas on them saying "Santa Says Relax" and were two sizes too small. I never wore them on a first date.)

I would then have to lug the entire contents of my wardrobe through the red-light district of Stoke on Trent, passing smack-addled prostitutes who would try to tempt me to spend the pocketful of twenty pence pieces I'd been collecting over the last week on them, rather than on washing my smalls. In those days, people used to smoke in launderettes, so your clothes would come out of the machine all fresh; by the time you got them into the tumbledryer they'd smell like you'd just come out of Wetherspoons.

So I wasn't looking forward to going to the launderette today, particularly as Buffy had given me three bin-bagfuls of washing, colour coded and bulging. (Rather like those Santa pants. He bragged.) But apart from a brief moment of panic when I thought someone had stolen my whites (he'd actually put them in a basket; nice of him) it wasn't that bad. Okay, there were quite a lot of poor people there, as one would expect, but I didn't see anything too gruesome. And nobody was smoking. In fact, someone helped me unpack my tumble drier, which was heartwarming if a little scary, almost leading me to shout "Get your hands off my towels."

When I got home, Buffy had rearranged all the furniture. It's a pregnant woman thing, I guess, though I'm glad to report that her modd swings have subsided, apart from a now-customary attack of the housework horrors this morning. She's blooming though. Hehe - she hates it when people say that. But it's true.

There are quite a lot of pictures of us on her Flickr page.



Last week I rifled through my record collection to find some vinyl to flog on eBay. I've got tons of indie and goth records from the nineties, including an extensive Sigue Sigue Sputnik collection. It's quite upsetting, though, to post your prized possessions on eBay - in order to buy nappies - only to find that no-one even wants to pay a quid for them!

However, my Cure Disintegration picture disc is currently going for - wait for it - £51. Some bloke in Spain is desperate for it. And there are still a few days to go. It's very exciting.

Is it me, or has Britain felt apocalypic this week? As well as flooding, gales, pestilence and plague, the whole country went Big Brother bonkers after the Jade/Shilpa racism row. Jade has taken the brunt of it - though I don't believe her "career" is over - but the twosome who really made my blood boil were the loathsome bimbette Danielle and young Pat Butcher lookalike, Jo from S Club. The sight of them guffawing like two gargoyle-henchwomen while Jade screamed abuse at Shilpa will haunt me and makes me feel ashamed to feel British. This country is awash with racists and I actually think Channel 4 have done us all a favour by bringing it into the open in such a dramatic way.

Shilpa to win! Here's a massive picture of her for your enjoyment.