success!!!

Today is a good day.
A few arsey emails/letters/phonecalls/threats of environmental health intervention/threats of violence to the manager of the letting agents and I have been released from my contract for the house of skank on or before the 11th. Hooray!! I'm also going to nominate them for the worst landlord in Oxford competition currently being run by a local radio station-yes, I am that cool!

Also went to see a house last night and it and the people who live there were lovely so hopefully that will come off, the only drawback is it's not available until mid-December so I'm investigating my options until then!

So we have three reasons to celebrate at the weekend now!

K xxx

more mould news

Ok so here’s the update! I have been released from my contract and can go when they find a new tenant, and if they haven’t before the end of December I can go then. Was a kind of compromise as the contract attached to the room is extremely harsh with no break clause within the first 6 months and I was wanting out now.

The citizen’s advice were rubbish-told me to write letters to them (which were ignored) and ask them nicely to let me go. Pah! Think I might get environmental health on the scene.

The mould itself is pretty aggressive it gets to the state it is in the picture in 3 days.

Anyway, I better go I have to write to the slimeball estate agent confirming everything which was said in our meeting, and address things which he ignored.

Feel very relieved but very angry too, especially as I have to continue paying rent to live there.

Mould and other delightful stories

Ok so today I'm angry.
The house of skank has got worse. Just look at the lovely picture- that is my bedside table.
And someone broke my bike.
So write a very angry email to the git boy estate agent who has been ignoring my letters/emails and phone calls for the last three weeks I did. Surprisingly all I had to do was threaten not to pay my rent and now I have a meeting with him tomorrow to ‘discuss my issues’ GRRRRRR!!! I think I might smack him.
I also hate the laws of this country which say ‘oh poor you, they need to do something but don’t you go withholding your rent you naughty little badger’
Luckily my bosses have been really nice about it and even helped draft the email this morning. So yeah.

Anyway, hope you are all ok. Sorry about the rant. Just had to get it off my chest. Gonna go and have a pint now.
What’s the plan for next weekend, oh plan making kinda people?

Kxx

Due to popular demand...

Not that much to report

Well, I guess there isn't that much happening up here but as I don't get to tell you that when in the pub I thought I may as well post it; There's not much happening up here.

Although I did have a birthday- yay! Thanks for remembering, I was very touched, especially as I have no idea when anyone's birthday is anymore. I do remember that Rose and Hannahs' birthdays are very close together...not much use except to know that I'll be offending two people in one week some time next year. I got lotsa presents including a ticket to a 'Be Good Tanyas' gig in November- Very cool. Look them up (http://www.begoodtanyas.com/home.html) and come too if you want (18th Nov).

I went to see The Merchant of Venice. I forgot to crib up on it and read the book first- and it was great! I had to run out of the ladies in the interval cos a girl was asking her friend (who had 'done' it at A level) who the hell Antonio was anyway and what happened next. I didn't even know if it was a tragedy or not, for all I knew it could have gone either way- everyone married or everyone dead (I shan't spoil it for you). It was like, well cool! Plus it made me realise that the way they all gobbled away at the text like they were Ice Cube (or at least Vanilla Ice), in the Leo version of Romeo and Juliet was a load of "bulls pizzles" (Midsummers Night Dream, Act I, Scene 3).

Hmm, what else...


It's Autmumn! Too obvious? Well, here's a photo of Autumn in Scotland if any of you are curious. It's pretty wet, very leafy, but smells great. As I didn't see Autumn last year I am realising how much I like it!

Umm... Joe put up a shelf in the spare room...

as I say, not a lot happening up here!

21st October! This Saturday!

In a collaborative effort inspired less by Christian Bale kicking the crap out of Ken Watanabe and more by Miyazaki's love up to Diana Wynne Jones, we proudly introduce:


HOWL'S WARMING CASTLE


Our shared love of contact sports and instant noodles has finally begun to take it's toll - fearing for our health we have started branching out in the kitchen.. WITH EXCITING RESULTS!

Come on down to Collier's Wood this Saturday 21st October and sample a fusion of two distressingly different cultures - Wasabi Welsh Cakes anyone?





Join in the search for our missing pet Sugiyama-san (>_<) /




3pm until last tubes (for those who can't bear the thought of a night bus mission) - A phone call from the tube station (Northen line) will ensure a speedy ninja-like escort from one of your hosts.

Rieko and Fred

P.S Come to Samiam with Fred on Thursday night in Camden. Meet at 7pm, isn't it?

Back in Blighty

I am returning home on Tuesday 31st October (its a short story; I'll bore you to death with it in the pub). As it is Andy's birthday two days later how about meeting up in London for a big Par-tay? We could paint the town red!

See you soon,

Torran

Happy Birthday Anna!!!!

Hope that your having a great day and are planning to get suitably wasted!

K x

Parallel Plank Surfing

Today I went Skiing.........and its October. After an early start, we skied up the athabasca glacier until 4 avalanches scooted past our intended trail. Hence we decided to go down. The glacier is pretty flat, about 10 degrees steepening to 40 degrees at its base. Unfortunately the deepest snow was about an half inch. We mainly skied ice (on the way up I was doubted this possibility). Now having not skied in ten years, and then on toothbrush bristles for perhaps an hour, I found it rather hard work! I think I have somewhat mastered the snow plow, turning and side sliping. Parallel turns evaded me, however; hopefully they're easier on snow! Now I have my fingers crossed for a big dump, so I don't get so many bruises.

This will please Rose: Having not had a hair cut in 6 months, I currently sport a north american mullet.

Torran

the boy who never grew up

whilst working hard I discovered a web site that you all should see:

http://www.pixyland.org/peterpan/

(it is related to work-honest OUP are printing the new follow up to Pan)

Harro!

Hope all you western hemisphere peeps are having fun. I sure am, tonight I'm off to Tokyo for a weekend of big-city debauchery! Yay! First I'm gonna head down the Ginza and grab myself a couple of high-class hookers, then head over to Kabukicho and pick a fight with some yakuza. Well maybe not, but it should still be a good weekend. I'll be seeing De La Soul on Saturday night at Sonarsound festival!

Anyway, the time has come for you all to start saving to come and visit me in the summer. I know Anna and Dan are both keen, who else wants to come? The money shouldn't be a problem for the corporate whores amongst you. I did a cursory search for flights next June and came up £524 return on Cathay Pacific. That's quite annoying, as I paid nearly £900 last time I flew with them! I'm sure if you did some proper searching, you could get flights for about £400. I once did the flight with Turkish airlines, who were of course rubbish, but it was only £380 return.

As for other costs, Japan isn't as expensive as everyone thinks. Eating, drinking, etc. is cheaper than in the UK. (e.g. in a cheap izakaya you can easily get completely battered and get some food as well for about £15). As foreign residents, you can get a rail pass (see here) to travel around. These are amazing value - less than £150 for 2 weeks of unlimited rail travel. Compare this with £50 for a single 2 hour bullet train journey from my town to Tokyo!

Dan and Anna's plan is to make their trip coincide with the Sonar music festival in Tokyo. I don't know the dates yet but last year it was ......

Oh. It seems I've made a grievous translation error. There is in fact only one Sonar festival in the world, and that's the one in Barcelona. The Japanese equivalent is Sonarsound, and that's what I'm going to tomorrow night. Sorry guys. Bet that was disappointing.

So, seeing as there's no longer any Sonar festival to coincide with, I'd recommend coming in July or August. It's easy for me to get days off work then, and it's also the climbing season for Mt Fuji so we could climb that.