In July we reported that a pair of non-resident landlords had been having serious problems with their tenants. The tenants had stopped paying rent and the day after notice to quit was served, a large portion of the ceiling in the main bedroom mysteriously collapsed.Following these events, and despite repeated written demands, the tenants failed to pay rent and threatened to counter-claim for

Disgruntled non-resident landlords served notice on two tenants from a North London flat last Friday. The tenants have repeatedly failed to pay rent on time, and made an unauthorised attempt to sub-let a room in the flat, in breach of the lease.The tenants, who cannot be named for legal reasons, have not made a single rent payment on time since moving in over seven months ago. The May payment

This is the part of the trip where things really started to bite, for me. Bite hard. You'll have to excuse the rant and the lack of photographs. Consider it part of the authentic experience. Or artistic license because we're coming to the end of the trip and I've got to string the blog-fodder out until something interesting happens in my current life. You choose. Choose Life. Choose never

Hello campers! Today's blog post could have been brought to you by the raging fury and righteous indignation (for such was its vehemence that it could have powered the internet though emotion alone) felt when I discovered that the twit "running" the USA has commuted Scooter Libby's prison sentence. I could have pointed out the blistering incongruity inherent in the thought processes of a man

I have shaken off most of the jetlag and attended one session of yogic spine re-alignment, and a moment of free time squeals into view on two wheels. I'm grabbing it, lest it veer out of my reach imminently. So buckle up, because it's a long one! These astonishing conclusions hot off the press: first, no matter how many times trans-global trips are made, one never becomes accustomed to the

BBC Radio 4 is running another of their public service exercises in audience participation: this year listeners are invited to vote for the law they would like to scrap, in the Christmas Repeal Vote.Readers may recall last year's study, in which the law that most people would like to see enacted was one that permitted public flayings and stonings in the street for petty theft, or something.As I

This was meant to be a post about one of my hobbies. But instead it is going to turn into a rant about Blogger Beta. Apologies. It should be called Beta Blocker, because that's what I'm going to need soon.Fucking bloody arse-wipe nonsense XMTHTML-whateverthefuck code!!!I thought I pretty much had the measure of Blogger. I'd managed to research how to put an image in my header, right where I

Today I am experiencing uncontrollable stress mounting into fury. What I need are some tranquillisers. What I have is a bunch of obligations to fulfil and socialising to organise, and a group of friends, acquaintances and relatives-in-law who apparently have no idea how to handle someone who is leaving the country for two years and will obviously have nine hundred things to do and people to see

So, we had an eventful day on Saturday, with a housewarming BBQ and then a dinner party, on opposite sides of London. Basically, we spent upwards of 3 hours of the afternoon-stroke-evening in the car, driving in a triangle from ours (north) to friend A's (south) to friend B's (west) and back to ours again. But it was worth it for Kiwi's Duckbreast extraordinaire. And whatever he puts on his

I'm discovering what a nightmare it is to have a husband at home when you're trying to work on something really important. I'm at the stage of writing up, and so I need long blocks of time where I can focus my brain on producing 10,000 words that hang together. I do not need the siblings-in-law to come around with two babies in tow at a time that's convenient for them, so that they can

OK, let us commence with the article. Brief history: this article was published on Feb 19th 2005, and is one of those that I have been forced to read for my research. Melanie Phillips writes for the Daily Mail, a paper that under normal circumstances would be deemed of insufficient quality to cleanse my backside. In fact, I have been known to cry out in agony should a copy be placed anywhere

Still working on Melanie Phillips - I feel I can't continue with my blogging life until I've eviscerated her article properly, but finding the time is tricky.Anyway, I arrived back from my holiday in a state of exhaustion. Why? Because there was a child involved in the last three days of it. Cowboy's friends visited with their son, and they are nice people and the son is cute but MY GOD could

Last weekend was spent in serious diplomatic efforts to repair Anglo-French relations. More specifically, Cowboy and I got to spend the weekend in the French Alps watching our friend Vix marry the French ski instructor she met while on holiday a couple of years ago. They met, they fell in love, she quit her job in London (lawyer) and moved out there to be with him. Five months ago they had a

...it's not a Swede, it's a smegging beetroot. Cowboy phoned up to tell me he was on his way home but he'd been pondering (all day, apparently; I thought he was a bit vacant when I spoke to him earlier) and he's pretty sure it's a beetroot. Nah, says I, can't be. It's a Swede: it's just really dirty, because all the vegetables come with tons of dirt on, because they were pulled out of the

So today my ridiculous water company, from whom I just received a bill for £181 (annual) last week, wishes to impose a hose-pipe and sprinkler ban. It is March.You can read a summary of the difficulties here. Apparently, the South East (and that includes London) hasn't been getting much rain. That, I can believe. It has been a noticeably drier winter, and the last few summers were very warm

Righty-ho. Today's post comes to you from the laughable work environment I call 'the Office'. I shouldn't technically be doing this but right now I wouldn't urinate on my boss were he emitting flames and I certainly wouldn't care if they fired me.At lunchtime today, I went for one of my thrice-weekly trips to the gym. I have come to love the gym, since I discovered Mistress Krista in the