How (not) to sell your house

We're currently in the process of selling of our house. I say 'in the process of', by which I mean I seem to have handed over a lot of money to estate agents so far and spent most weekends hoovering.

Whilst we haven't had an offer yet we have had plenty of people round to see the place. This is particularly pleasing as most news reports suggest that you are more likely to build a life size replica of Coventry out of sticklebricks, than sell your house.

When you are selling your house, you also get people offering you bizarre advice. Someone said to us "Oh, you should get Kirsty and Phil to help you move." - yes, because thats what they do isn't it? They sell your house for you. You've got that the wrong way round I think - presumably you think Supernanny gives speed to toddlers and suggests they smear jam on the wall?

I digress. So far our 'viewers' have fallen into three camps. The disinterested, who are probably thinking at some point about moving in the near future, possibly. Then there's the hopefuls - people who've either sold their house or are first time buyers and know that they could crush our moving dreams - oh, I can see that evil glint in their eyes.

Then there are the insane people. "Ideally I was looking for a 5th bedroom" said one woman. "Might I suggest you don't come to a 4 bedroom house then? Or did I not mention the SECRET INVISIBLE ROOM..." was what I thought of saying at the time, I didn't say of anything course - you're not allowed to be nasty to people who might buy your house. Even if they are clearly mental

Showing people around your house is always strange. As the missus works quite a few weekends, it's mainly me who has done the dozen or so viewings. It's become a bit like a standup routine now.

Everytime I show people the downstairs toilet I say "And here's the downstairs, as they call it. 'cloakroom'. Ideal for those times you have any 18th century nobles around who want to put their cloak somewhere.". As we go up the stairs I say "and these are the stairs" and when I show them one of the spare rooms I say "We call this the mummy's room, because thats where the mother in-law stays - nothing to do with Egyptian kings."

With people who clearly aren't going to buy the house I'm tempted to make things up such as:

"We've renovated the garden somewhat, well, we've moved the headstones."

"We considered converting the garage into a kitchen, the kitchen into a bedroom, the bedroom into the stairs and the stairs into a garage"

"I really like this room because I watched Batman Begins in it, have you seen it? I love it"

"I suppose some people might be put off by a ghost, but we find it a unique selling point."

"Every house has a negative point and ours is the fact that the utility room causes people to age at five times the normal speed. I tend to only pop in there when it's really necessary"

Fingers crossed we sell the place before I end up saying any of these out loud, or before I refer to the bedroom as 'where the magic happens'.

Save me from that and get on rightmove now.

Timmy and the resolutions

Disappointly that title isn't the name of my new band. Or is it? No. No it isn't. If i ever have a band the name will more than likely be Badgercull (it's a long story).

Anyway. New Year and time for resolutions.

Over the years I've made some pretty ambitious resolutions for the year. That one about learning to fly (not in plane, just physically being able to fly) never worked out. And the one about inventing a machine to destroy Myleene Klass is still very much in the blueprint stage.

So this year here's a few I want to stick to. Perhaps you can try them too. Or perhaps not, what am i? Your mother?

Complain more when it's appropriate
When it comes to complaining, I'm awfully British. In a restaurant I can order a cheese toasted sandwich, they turn up with a lump of plutonium attached to a picture of Richard Littlejohn's backside with a side order of diesel flavoured paper clips...and when they ask "was everything ok with your meal?" I'll mumble something positive. Well no more. From now on I shall say when things are wrong. Conversely, that then means I can praise when things are right. Here's to a year of either discounted meals and apologies, or waiters piddling in my dessert.

Eat more fruit
Sounds tricky, until you realise that last year I ate the equivalent of 3 apples. I can surely do better than this? Ok, I don't like fruit and veg as much as sweets and curries (come on, I'm 35, I'm still young) so if I eat 4 apples I will have succeeded. And tictacs, they're fruit aren't they?

Tell people when they are being rude
Probably similar to my first one, but this is inspired by people who generally are rude and need to be told. Case in point, last year someone turned up late to an event I was at and apologised by saying "Oh, it's my son's carol concert/birthday/first vampire communion etc." They then proceeded to show half a dozen pictures of said event to me on a phone. I tried to be nice and showed some pics of our cats doing amusing things. The response to which was "I don't like cats." And in turn that led me to say "Yes, I don't like other people's children either - but I'm not rude enough to say it to their face." I must do more of this. I consequently look forward to being on the dole by March.

Stop calling people 'squire'
I do this quite a lot. In some cases, as a term of gentlemanly greeting - that's fine. But I also do it a lot when I forget someone's name. Honestly, it's a terrible habit and something I have to not do anymore. Please pull me up on it.

Finally write that book of short stories
Yes, there's a set of horror themed short stories in my head that might/might not involve the following - a set of haunted golf clubs, a dog that turns out to be a robot, the internet in your eyeball, a possessed polaroid photo and an express elevator to Croydon. Yes, some/all/none of that must be written.

I'll report back in a year on my progress. Until then, speak to you later squire.

Bugger.

Christmas Appeal - lets all confuse people this festive period

Christmas eh? Always a bit predictable? Sherry, sprouts, asleep by 5pm, slight hangover at 7pm, world record ‘put Ferrero Rocher in mouth’ before heading to bed looking for bonjela.

So here’s something that almost anyone can try, as long as you have a computer and the ability to make no sense whatsoever. And if you all do it, we can really mess with people’s heads. But in a lovely fun way that won’t cause any divorces or punch ups this festive season.

It’s sort of the anti-EastEnders.

A few Christmases ago I was at a works Christmas do and drunkenly ended up defacing the jokes that came out of the crackers with crayon. The next morning I found I still had a pristine joke/motto and hatched a plan. Here’s the plan:

-Take the paper (here, I’ve made you a blank one to copy and paste on the right).

-Paste it into photoshop, paint or powerpoint and then just add the joke

-This is the key bit. The joke shouldn’t make sense at all. I don’t mean poor quality Joe Pasquale level joke. I mean it shouldn’t have any basis in comedy or preferably reality at all (perhaps Pasquale was the right comparison)

-Make the first part Christmassy if you want, (if you're stuck use words like ‘snowman’, ‘santa’, ‘presents’)and then add a totally nonsensical answer.

-Make about eight of them and print them out

-Get your hands on whoever’s crackers (steady) you’ll be pulling over Christmas dinner and unwrap it so you can get to the contents (Since we were children we all knew how to successfully unwrap the cracker without breaking it it's like a junior version of The Hurt Locker).

-Swop out the actual joke for your amended one.

-Replace the cracker.

And that’s it.

On Christmas day 2007 the jokes in our crackers contained the one on right as well as the following:

“What did one snowman say to the other snowman? I’m sick of religious fundamentalism”

“What do you call a man with a limp at Christmas? Nigel Anderson”

“How many presents can you get in car? Probably about 12”

“Why did the man do the thing with the stuff? Because of the Alan key”

“Where does Santa get his hat? Leicester”

What happened next was beautiful to watch, especially with older people. They pulled the cracker, they read the joke and I got to watch their faces, the checking of the cracker box for information, the re-reading or just seeing my mum read it twice and then just put it back in the cracker silently and pretending there hadn't been one in hers.

Honestly. The most fun on Christmas Day since I got a Darth Vader Star Destroyer.

That’s my gift to you. Please take it and pass it on this festive season. Because cracker messing is just for Christmas, so make the most of it.

My drug shame

Sorry I haven't blogged for a bit. Stuff happened and, well, that's about it. Anyway, all's good now and all I can say is that they won't find the body - so we're all ok.

My lack of blogging meant I failed to share a story that I had published on the highly amusing www.b3ta.com site. They were asking for 'your drugs stories' and rather than the time I played 3 hours of 'loopin louie' whilst eating wagonwheels (you can draw your own conclusions) I went for a more wholesome tale. So I sent the below. It is utterly true btw, and I thought it was worth sharing.

When I first began driving I borrowed my mum's car a lot. Enjoying the freedom of the road I soon stocked up on indie compilation tapes and sweets and visited friends around the country.

One evening my mum came back from work and asked to sit down for a serious talk. She pulled out a small white tablet embossed with a letter on it and said to me, with tears in her eyes: "I found this in my car. I want you to answer me straight. Is this drugs?"

I took it off her, looked at it (I'd obviously dropped it in the car) and told her the truth in a calm tone of voice.

"No. It's a Smint."

What a load of rubbish

I've been down in the dumps recently. ACtually, that joke doesn't work as well these days when you have to say "I was down at the recycling centre today" - honestly, progress is ruining old gags. Thankfully someone I work with told me he was going to speak to someone about getting his eyes lasered and I did the old "I've come to get my eyes sorted" - "That's as maybe sir, this is the butchers". Some gags progress can't touch.

Anyway I digress.

I've been down at our local rubbish emporiums recently, shifting the usual from the garden - leaves, branches, Myleene Klass's still twitching corpse - and it's been hard work, thankfully the hourly trips to the dump offer comic gold.

Firstly there's the brilliantly random signage. They've got a big area for scrap metal so they've painted in 3 foot high letters "SCAAP", forgetting that the letters A & R are not the same.

Then there's the brilliant sign on the landfill skips that say "NO CHILDREN". I'm very close to walking up with a smallish bin-bag and asking the men at the dump 'I need to recycle these children, if so - which area?'

And the men who work there are brilliant, sometimes helpful, sometimes overly interested in my rubbish. I brought an old lawnmower down and some chap immediately said "I'll help you with that". But when I passed the area for electrical goods later it wasn't there, I imagine it's on ebay by now or he's riding it round the back of the dump. I once got rid of a pool table and I was assailed by about half a dozen workers who were all determined to "get rid of that for me". It's like The Wombles meets Shameless.

The final thing about the dump is that it instills that primal spirit in me - I am man, I have been to dump - making me feel I could easily pop home and assemble furniture or perhaps kill a mammoth before tea.

I didn't by the way, as I wouldn't know which recyling bin to put a mammoth in after I'd killed it.