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Let me get this straight; from having to pay to have a wee to being taxed because you happened to die. we all know that life costs money, constantly and persistently. There is no escaping commerce or cash or surcharges or added extras or tax... No wonder when Gene Roddenberry had the idea for Star Trek it would be set in a universe where there was no need for money and there were no cultural differences because (arguably) there was no culture.

I always thought the idea of developing ST styled transporters - not for humans but for food and materials - would probably be the end of famine (at least), but can you imagine the amount something like that would be exploited? How much would you sell a concept like this for? The reason I ask is because in the current age nothing will ever be for free.

This sudden interest in general economics has been brought to you by someone who is moving and for the first time has taken an actual interest in it. Fuck me; why on earth would anyone want to do it? It's not the actual moving that's stressful, it's opening a letter from someone you will owe money to and realising that not only are they asking for money, but also your anal virginity...

There's this TV show called Rip-Off Britain, it shows how criminals and chancers to 'legitimate' thieves can rip us off. The thing is, instead of that Matt bloke presenting it, we should just see an infinite cycle of every CCTV camera in the country - 2 seconds and move to the next, ad infinitum... It is after all just showing us snapshots of rip off Britain.

***

Yesterday I said to the wife, "I'm surprised [given what the neighbours are like] that no one has commented on the SOLD sign or the fact that [after over 17 years] we're moving." This morning (and bearing in mind it was only 9.55am as I typed this) while throwing some stuff into the bin, the soon-to-be-relegated-to-history Mr 24-Carat Fuckwit, next door, says, "Moving then?" As a stater of the bleeding obvious for a number of years this was pretty much par for the course. I nodded, made that half-smile half-oh-well face and hoped he would just slope off back into his grotto to be fuckwitted on his own time. He didn't...

Now, as some people are aware, I have three default settings when dealing with people I really have zero time for: nice, aggressive and mischievous; I've been in a reasonably excellent mood for the last couple of weeks, so see if you can guess which of the three I opted for?

"Moving anywhere nice?" I nodded and made uh-huh noises and followed it up with, "But it's all still early days, it could all go tits up and we'll be stuck here." I watched my sentence sail above his head and hit the stratosphere. I could also see he was itching to ask me more questions, probably because of prompting from his porcine assistant. "We've bought a house in Scotland," says I, suddenly deciding which way I'm going to lead this conversation.
"Scotland?!" He says, feigning interest.
"Yeah, I'm fed up with this country. Fed up with all the doom and gloom about Brexit and immigrants."
"I couldn't agree more," he says, "I'm getting fed up with never hearing a bloody English person on my own street. I thought this Brexit business means we're stopping all these foreigners coming here, no one seems to have told this street." I raised my eyebrows in what could have been construed as either agreeing or disagreeing. He continued without any prompting, suddenly after nearly two decades thinking he actually had something in common with me other than us both being mammals, turning the conversation into the longest continuous use of words between the two of us - ever. "He's [pointing at the Romanian family house often spoken about here] selling his house." Very observant as he has a great big For Sale sign on his house. "Apparently he's bought a fookin great big house in Weston Favell." He hasn't; he's moving his family back to Romania, despite both his kids having been born here, because he's fed up with the abuse.

I also secretly suspect he's moving because of my new next door neighbour, Nic...

We'll return to Fuckwit in a moment; first a word from our resident conspiracy theorist...

The Romanian family are, it has to be said, quite gregarious and friendly, the teenage daughter has turned into a stroppy mare, but the rest of the them are lovely and fit in with the very multi-cultural street. They have lots of visitors, some Romanian, some British or maybe of other European persuasions.
Nic, our new neighbour, who replaced the Irresponsible Children who lived there briefly before him, is also Romanian. Me being the kind of person who, if I went on holiday to Spain, would spend 50% of the holiday avoiding fellow British people, knows it's not completely unreasonable to presume that just because they're two Eastern Europeans from the same country, in a foreign land, they might not become instant friends, but the tension between the two is palpable. The established guy treats the new guy like he was a (former) member of the Romanian Secret Police and while you see both men bantering with neighbours and their own clique of Romanian friends, you NEVER see them fraternise with each other. Plus, my more-established neighbour has literally only been talking about selling up since my new neighbour moved in. Perhaps he knows where the bodies are buried, or he simply likes being top Romanian in the street, but my money's on something nefarious...

So anyhow, Fuckwit goes off on a UKIP styled rant that belied my belief he was a complete and utter wankstain on society - he's worse! Telling me how our hospitals are clogged up with disease-ridden foreigners and the country is being stopped from being where it deserves to be by liberal do-gooders wanting to extend the hand of friendship to anybody, whether they're Muslim or just plain foreign.

Seriously, if I needed a solid, determining factor, to make my mind up about moving it would have been this ten minute conversation with the epitome of ignorance and hate... But, you need to remember, this was the man who said we were going to have a prolonged heatwave in 2012 because his mate Pete said so. His mate Pete probably also dictates Fuckwit's foreign policy. The man, sadly, is indicative of a large percentage of people in this country, informed by ignorance and turning that ignorance into a wild and crazy game of Psychopathic Chinese Whispers, by adding their own little twists or beliefs. No one in our street who speaks to him now will hear anything other than there was a Romanian family who have done so well out of this country in less than 5 years, are now living in a better house than any of us ever will.

I'd hope he - the Romanian over the road - makes more than enough money to buy a big fuck off mansion in Cluj or by the Black Sea just so he never has to hear a vile English accent spewing hate ever again.

Anyhow, once Fuckwit had finished his rant, he looked at me and said, "What are you going to do up there?" Without so much as a pause or a skipped beat, I said...
"I'm joining the independence movement, despite being a migrant of sorts, and pushing for full EU membership for an independent tolerant Scotland."

...

...

Honestly, I could have said, "Unë jam duke u bashkuar me lëvizjen për pavarësi, pavarësisht se një emigrant në terezi, dhe shtyn për anëtarësim të plotë në BE për një Skoci e pavarur." [That's Albanian, you know] for the reaction it got. The problem with fuckwits is they have no sense of irony and are also as thick as pig shit (although that is rather harsh on pig shit).

I suppose I could have been considerably more confrontational, but I really didn't see the point.

***

This will piss Fuckwit off. There's a chance that my house and the one owned by the Romanian family could both be the targets of a local Asian slumlord. The real shame for me is I won't be here to see his face if that's the case.

***

A recommendation of the televisual variety to all my friends with discerning tastes. Watch the series called Patriot. Just do it; don't argue with me. Honestly, you will not see anything quite as strange - a deadly serious 'spy' thriller, made like a sitcom and acted like no one knows what the hell is happening. It's the most off-kilter thing I can remember ever seeing and while it is very very serious, it is also intentionally unintentionally brilliantly hilarious...

***

It has now been well over 6 months since I disengaged every Google service from my mobile phone, apart from the ones that I couldn't switch off.

Do you what difference this has made to my mobile telephoning pleasure?

I now get a yellow triangle appearing telling me that I have the Google Play Store switched off so I won't be able to automatically update [EVERY FUCKING THING IN THE WORLD ALL THE FUCKING TIME AND ALLOW US TO KNOW EVERYTHING WE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOU]. Shame that, eh? I can still make phone calls, send text messages, take crap photos and occasionally check the BBC sports page for the latest football scores. Despite Google telling me at every opportunity that my enjoyment will be spoiled and I won't be able to keep up to date with all the fantastic things happening, it seems that my enjoyment is enhanced and nothing is spoiled, so they can go and enjoy everything I'm missing out on with a giant spindle up their arses...

It would be win-win if only Google would believe me when I tell them I don't want them in my life because it feels like I have an automated stalker looking over my shoulder, all the time.

All I have to do now is find a browser for this PC that isn't Chrome, but is as easy to use and that I feel comfortable with using. I just don't 'get' Firefox any more; its quirks outweigh Chrome's.

***

Moving, by use of a removal firm, from Northampton to Wigtown could well be the single biggest cost I have ever incurred for a service. It's one of the few times I have put a ballpark figure on what I thought the cost would be and been way under what it actually could be. The cheapest quote we've had so far has been £300 more than our own top end guesstimate. It appears that removal firms work on the basis of £1000 a day, plus extras or VAT.

***

If the current population of Wigtown (pronounced, we have been told, Wigton) is really 1002 and if the family we're buying the house off of move out of the 'town' and are replaced by us, the maths tell us there will be 1000 people living there.

There's approx 225,000 people living in Shoesville. If the ratios are true then there should be just a 225th chance of me encountering arseholes on the road, fuckwits as neighbours or racist xenophobes while out walking the dogs. You can just tell one of those things is going to be worse than it is here...

***

I stood and looked at my garden yesterday; the nectarine tree is blossoming, there's evidence of spring everywhere and it is one of the few things I will miss about moving. I have a blog in my head for a later date about the pros and cons of this change of life experience and the things I want to do before it happens, but my garden has been one of the few things that has consistently given me pleasure over the last 17 years - fruit, veg, duck eggs, peace and tranquillity, sunburn, bonfires and a real feeling that you could be in the middle of the countryside.

Yet as I typed that last sentence I realised that the new house has a very similar garden, which faces the same direction and is in the middle of the countryside - it'll be an interesting comparison.

***

While decluttering this last week, I wondered what kind of nonsense I threw away last time I decluttered because I had so much shit I couldn't even remember why some of it was saved. I also did found a box of 'floppy' discs with content from my first ever PC - 1992 to when I swapped over to CDs - 2000. I must have got a new CD-burning computer in the January of 2000 because I had no later date than the 8th Jan 2000. I know my current PC is about five years old and is the second one without a floppy drive.

Anyhow, I have transferred a huge number of discs onto an area of my hard drive. I expect upwards of 50% will be in programmes that won't be transferable and many things (such as old Pagemaker files from Comics International days) are simply taking up space until I delete them and get rid of their existence once and for all.

I did find something from the late 90s that might possibly embarrass one of my friends...