This House Is Not A Home - It's A Sauna

Today marks the beginning of Father-Daughter Bonding Week. This is not an event recognised by any calendar or shop-bought diary. It is an unofficial holiday concocted by my father, and although it may have got me out of work for a week, I think I'd rather take the 9 to 5 slog and slump in front of the computer all day (which, to be honest, I would do anyway - this is one area of my new job that I am highly adept at) than spend this amount of time with him. I suppose, when you think about it, it's desperately sad in its own way, but if I'm perfectly honest, I don't really miss Dad a whole lot since the split. This does not mean that do not I love him. It simply means that a week of day trips and listening to rants about everything, my mother being the topic of choice, is unappealing. Unappealing is an understatement. I can't think of a word to describe it. This illustrates what a terrible daughter I am and also what an incredibly tedious man my father can, on occasion, be. In fact, when I arrived last night, my spirits were raised only by the presence of the Girlfriend's car at the bottom of the drive. You know there are problems when you're more excited by the prospect of seeing your father's girlfriend that actually seeing the man himself.

The Girlfriend is a wonderful woman. She is a policewoman and is excellent at correcting my father when he says things that are mildly offensive. She has also proved herself to be some sort of dietician. Up until meeting the Girlfriend, you would open my father's fridge and be faced with the conundrum of what to have. Bread? Bacon? Or beer? Beer and bread? Or bread and bacon? A Triple B? Such decisions!

I'm spoilt for choice! How will I ever decide?

This may seem a perfectly reasonable diet to a recently separated middle-aged man, but as far I was concerned, it had gotten to the point where dinner at my father's place was something to be avoided at all costs. Luckily, since the Girlfriend came along, she has estbalished herself as the Patron Saint of Tesco, saving my father's fridge and, in the process, his arteries. However, this time, even the Girlfriend could not lift my spirits. I was exhausted. I was running on three hours sleep. The only thing I was truly looking forward to was my bed. I was to be disappointed.

Allow me to explain. My father's house is a four bedroom property that is Grade II listed. "Wow!", I hear you say (well, probably not, but humour me for a second here), "Just imagine all that history!" Well let me tell you, history is no replacement for air. When you own a building of such 'historical value' (the quote marks indicate the scorn with which I regard this supposed value. When you have spent a childhood searching for hidden passages, removing bricks to see if there may be any long-lost treasure lurking and digging up the back garden in search of great hoards of gold and riches, and your greatest prize, in fact your only prize, after all that effort, was a single rusty door knob, your view of historical value would be tainted too).

Rusty door knobs - responsible for the death of my childhood dreams.

Anyway, it transpires that as the owner of such a historical gem (*coughbullshitcough*), certain responsibilities are bestowed upon you, mostly involving protecting the historical integrity of said building. We already broke this rule once by plastering over some brickwork in the lounge, mainly because it was so dark in there that we kept walking in to things. Why the brickwork is so integral to the house's history, I will never know. People knock walls down all the time. The National Trust can't purchase every freaking brick in the country. I'd like to see them try. What a tourist attraction that would be:

Hey kids, let's go and see a shitload of bricks! What a treat!

Anyway, I digress. The part of staying in a Grade II listen building that really gets my goat is that fact that you can't change anything at the front of the house. Do whatever the hell you like to the back, install an indoor boxing ring, establish a crack den, even demolish it if you like. Just don't change the front. At first this doesn't seem to be a problem. But there is a catch. The windows don't open.

England is currently enjoying a heatwave. I say enjoying, but this is a misnomer. The first few days are enjoyable. Britain is renowned for what is generally shitty weather. Most summers, we drown in a mixture of rain, mud and our own self-loathing. When the sun shines, people wet themselves with excitement. They run to their local pharmacy and purchase their entire stock of sun scream. They gorge on barbecue food. They flock to the beach in their thousands:

...Where'd I leave my towel again?

For the first few days, the heat is the best thing that has ever happened to England. And then, as us English are wont to do, we start to complain. Our paranoia results in the issuing of hundreds of health warnings. If we had our way, we would crawl into some kind of bunker and sleep until the heatwave is over. As a friend of Facebook so accurately observed, "We, the English, love sunny weather. Except the English sunny weather, it's too hot and bothersome. We prefer Spain or Jamaica." How right you are, my friend. Anyway, this is merely to give you an indication of how hot it currently is here right now. Now imagine your room is at the front of your house. The very same house, in fact, whose front windows do not open. Earlier in the evening, I had congratulated myself on my success in winning the computer for the evening. Imagine my fury when I eventually retired to bed, only to realise that my sister had won the one electric fan in the house. A computer, whilst a source of entertainment, is of no use when the percentage of your body that is composed entirely of water is rapidly on the decrease, due to the fact that most of it is escaping out of every pore in your body. I seriously contemplated stealing the fan. My sister was asleep - she would never know. After battling with my conscience for a few moments, I decided that I am not completely heartless. I went downstairs to my father and presented him with my predicament. He pointed out that, in my panic, I had completely forgotten about the connecting door between our two rooms. A compromise was reached! The connecting door was opened, the fan was repositioned and switched to the 'oscillate' system. My internal water supply was, it seemed, saved.

Air, I soon discovered, does not travel far.

I tossed. I turned. I stripped (contain yourselves). I wrapped my bottle of water from the fridge of my duvet and cuddled it like a particularly bizarre soft toy. A turbulent night's sleep was had, which, combined with the previous night's escapades, resulted in me not getting up until 12. In a bid to wake up, I took a very long shower. I had forgotten how much I missed my father's power shower, the one with the glass door. I drew grotesquely oversized genitalia and wrote rude messages, sniggering to myself like a boy in the early throes of puberty. Once I emerged from the shower, a small problem arose in that I suddenly seemed to have acquired extensive hand dandruff. I have shed enough skin to build an entirely new set of hands. It appears that my entirely family are doomed to turn in to snakes. Is this some kind of pandemic that the government ought to be alerted to?:

Snake fever - the new swine flu.

Once I had recovered from the unnerving discovery that my hands were now missing significant skin coverage, I went downstairs, only to be informed that we were going shopping - clearly my father remained undeterred by the fact that I had spent most of the time round at his house asleep. My sister had decided that she wanted new riding boots, so new riding boots she would have. The most exciting part of this trek was when my sister decided to imitate the Paco Rabanne advert at the checkout (if you want to watch somebody who can actually dance, try the parody. I'm not even being sarcastic. The reason my sister's imitation was so funny, is because it was so accurate. She looked like a praying mantis on drugs. Mat Gordon - the model in the original advert - can't dance. By comparison, the guy in the parody is Michael Flatley). We then moved on to TKMaxx, where I conned myself into thinking some t-shirts might actually fit, and then went into the changing rooms, discovered they didn't, and contemplated the pros and cons of a gastric bypass. Deciding that I preferred food, we went out for lunch and I ate the world's biggest chicken bake. This was about four hours ago now, and I still can't move.

So, that was my day, in short (or very long, depending on how you look at it). I now ought to attempt to finish my book. I'm currently reading 'Juliet, Naked' by Nick Hornby. I wish I could say I liked it, but in all honesty, I feel a certain sense of apathy towards it, which is going to make my attempt to review it here (shameless self-promotion, I just felt my soul die a little bit) incredibly difficult. The sooner I manage to drag myself to the end, the sooner I can read something superior in quality and then race through the rest of my pile of books. I want to see the look on the library man's face when I return my five books in less than a week. You know you lead a boring life when this your main source of joy. How do I live with myself?

The Role Of The Mediator

One prominent and rather unpleasant aspect of being an average sort of person, I am beginning to discover, is that people think you are someone you can turn to in times of trouble. My bland exterior provides a canvas upon which people paint allegiances. People take one look and me and go, "Aha! Look at her dull and unremarkable face! Clearly this person has yet to take a side! I shall mould her to my own design, like some sort of deity! Mwahahahahaha!" Obviously this is an internal monologue, otherwise I would see these things coming and I would know to run as fast as I could in the opposite direction (which, admittedly, is not very fast. At all). Instead, I am forced to take on the role of the mediator, which, let me assure you, is one the most difficult and misunderstood roles of all time and never recieves the sort of recognition and admiration it deserves. Just look at those bastards with all their fancy BAFTAs, Emmys and Oscars. All they have to do is prance around in a more-often-than-not ridiculous outfit and say some poncey shit. They don't know how easy they've got it. They should try keeping a carefully passive expression when they're sat listening to various members of their family making slanderous accusations about each other. The ability to do this is the mark of the true actor. Honestly, I should have a display cabinet crammed with all sorts of awards by now. My talent is being wasted.

Oh, who am I kidding? The reason people rant to me, is because I am spineless. Really, it's a wonder I manage to even maintain an upright stance on a day to day basis. Not only am I spineless, but I am a bitch, and a two-faced one at that. I can listen to somebody have a rant about a person who they find profoundly irritating, and I can nod along, agree with their many and mostly repetitve points, even interject with an amusing anecdote or juicy morsel of gossip about that person from time to time. I can then have a conversation with said irritating person, who I may find quite annoying myself, and listen to them wax lyrical about their hatred for the initial ranter. I have developed an uncanny ability to pretend to like people and cover up my bitchy tracks with more bitching. I am the epitome of bitch. My soul is tarnished. I will burn in hell.

Hell is other people. Or, you know, just flames and shit.

Okay, maybe that's bordering on melodramatic, in fact it may even be fully-fledged melodrama. The central idea of this blog is that I am average. Bitching is a very normal thing to do. I am no different from everybody else. My soul could maybe do with a bit of a spit-n-polish job, but other than that, I can probably stroll through those pearly gates with only the merest hint of a raised eyebrow from St Pete.

Anyway. Back on topic. I started off as a negotiator. This began when I was quite small and parental arguments were something that were infrequent and highly undesirable when they arose. The following conversation is an example of my work:

Me: Mummy, why are you crying?
Mum: Because I'm sad.
Me: Why are you sad?
Mum: Because Daddy said some mean things, but don't worry about it, sweetheart.
*CUE LEVELS OF WORRY THAT ARE UNHEALTHY IN A CHILD SO SMALL*

[Ten minutes later]
Me: *poking head round doorframe* Daddy, Mummy's sad.
Dad: *washing up in fury. He is so angry that the water is bubbling, or that could be my childish imagination working overtime* Yup.
Me: Maybe you should go and say sorry?
Dad:...Nope.

Eventually, I discovered that negotiations don't work. I have learnt to simply listen and be sympathetic, or at least pretend to be. Sometimes pretence is easy, and other times it is more difficult that trying to maintain a plentiful supply of oxygen whilst breathing through a straw that has been thrust up one nostril. I have found that on the phone it is easier. On Friday, my father rang me. I had to endure a twenty-five minute rant, starting off with his ex-girlfriend, continuing seamlessly on to his current girlfriend (might not be so current anymore) and rounding off nicely with a vicious attack upon my mother. In this time, I managed to dress myself with one hand. Even the bra. Now that, my friends, is talent. One of the distinct advantages of being on the phone is that your face is hidden. In fact, you don't even have to listen. Sympathy can be feigned with a series of non-committal grunts and a series of 'mmm's and 'ahh's - variety of pitch makes this act all the more convincing. In the mean time, you are free to roll your eyes like marbles and make a variety of obscene gestures without the person at the end of the line ever knowing. It's marvellous. Modern technology never ceases to amaze.

As if the moaning endured on Friday wasn't enough, I am having to endure yet more today. This seems unnecessary, given that I got home at five this morning after going out clubbing in New Cross. We went to Venue. The exterior pretty much sums the place up:

Venue - it's shit, but it's good shit.

The interior doesn't get much better. Take a look at the photo album on the site and you'll see what I mean: http://www.thevenuelondon.com/Main/main1.htm (bit of promotion right there - don't thank me). However, this is one of the the best things about the loveable little den of vice and iniquity that is Venue - no matter how shit you look, there will be someone who looks worse.

So anyway, Sarah (my fellow borderline alcoholic) and I take the night bus home at around 4.30am, eventually rolling home at about 5. We enter the house stealthily, like ninjas, only without the outfits. We even manage to make sandwiches without waking anybody. We eventually go to bed at around half past five. We are up again by half nine. We make breakfast. Sarah goes home at about ten forty-five. I retire to my room. My mother enters at half eleven-ish to inform me that she is taking my sister to a horse show. I nod blithely without tearing my eyes from the computer screen. She leaves.

And then the screaming starts.

Such fury I have not heard since a few days ago, when I encountered the terrifying "lady" screeching in what was presumably righteous indignation at a traffic warden (admittedly they are soulless and a waste of perfectly good oxygen, but still, the levels of abuse were unnecessary) out of the window of a BMW. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would genuinely hear someone scream, "FUCK OFF YOU SLAAAAAAAAAG".

A BMW - it's shiny, but it doesn't buy you class.

So my mother hustled my sister out of the house, slamming the door with one final venomous hiss of, "Piss off." For a while I comtemplated whether the mother I know and love had been replaced by a particularly vicious snake:

Take one mother, add anger, simmer gently. The result may swallow you whole.

I sat debating this for a while, before deciding that I didn't particularly care. Arguments have become commonplace around here in the past few months and rather than analyse every deeply hurtful insult hurled like a grenade across the battlefield that is my home, it is often easier to duck down into the trenches and play dead. This is what I did, but then who should knock on my door and stroll into my room but my mother's boyfriend, with whom she had had the argument that had initiated her reptilian metamorphosis. He spent a few awkward moments attempting to justify himself, with varying degrees of success. Once again, I was relegated to the role of sympathetic ear. My sympathy is wearing thin. I now feel like I want to do something like this to my darling family:

I KEEL YOU.

You see that look in my eyes? That is lunacy. Sheer lunacy induced by listening to far too many people's problems. Such is the curse of the average.