Category: Stylish

Avatar Retirement thoughts

Now that we’re all middle-aged, there’s the lingering prospect of all the good stuff that you hear about but don’t get to experience until you reach a certain part of your life. Want some examples? How about pains in parts of your body that don’t make any sense (“I never use my little finger so why does it feel as though a lynx is trying to slash its way out of it?”), confusion when entering a room (“wait, wait… I was here to find the… banana, was it?”) or perhaps feeling out of touch in every possible way (“when did people stop using Netscape?”).

It’s inevitable. Though we may joke about being right on the fashions, it’s been some time since I was anywhere near the fashions; I’m barely in the same postcode let alone being right on them. Sigh. Can’t be helped.

There’s no time to sit and ruminate on how unnatural it feels looking through a Reddit post or ask why everyone dancing on Tiktok is going to destroy the human race, there’s so much to do before then. I’ve got to pay off the mortgage first, which means working until I’m probably in my 70’s given that the retirement age keeps going up. There’s also raising my second child (I’m reliably to blame for that one) which is about to begin any day now. Oh, and I still haven’t finished the garden. I think the gooseberry bush is dead.

When the weight of responsibility gets on top of me, I drive a hundred miles out of my way and stop to look at this view. Why? Because one day, I am going to buy it and build my dream home on it.

Now I know what you’re thinking and, you’re right, it is very small. Too small in fact. You have to think outside the box because otherwise your dreams will never come true. The Japanese have been getting by with very tiny pod or capsule hotels for years now. Here’s how it’s going to look:

  1. The bedroom or, more accurately, the standing bed. I think it’s asking too much for the entire building my house will stacked against to turn 90 degrees to the right so that I can have a flat surface, so I will have to get used to sleeping standing up. I’ll nail the pillow to the wall and utilise a slim sleeping bag for maximum space efficiency.
  2. The toilet or, more accurately, the cereal box in the corner. Nothing else will be able to fit in that space except perhaps an A5 lever arch file, and I can hardly three w’s in that now, can I? It’d go everywhere.
  3. The sitting area or, more accurately, the only space left to do anything. I don’t know where all my video games are going to go. I guess I’ll have to put them in storage unless by the year 2055 I’ll have super cool VR goggles where I can play them all using my brain impulses so I can probably lie in my “bed” and play them there, leaving the sitting area for entertaining guests. A snug flat screen TV in the top left-hand corner, a kettle for hot bevs and a shoebox as a coffee table? It’s all coming together.

I’ve got it all planned out. It’s going to look incredible. The only problem is where Vikki and the baby are going to go. I guess I’ll have to purchase the flat on the other side so they can stay there.

That’ll work. For sure.

Avatar Life hack

Do you sometimes forget things? Do you need to be reminded of them? Do you travel around a lot? Do you need a way of travelling that doesn’t risk leaving your reminders behind?

Here’s a brilliant tip to solve all your problems at once. No more arriving at the supermarket and finding you’ve left your shopping list at home. Your shopping list will come with you if you just turn your car into a blackboard.

I mean, obviously this guy’s just got his mates to draw all over it, and that’s an option too. So that’s three things. Reminders, driving, and doodling with chalk. Three things all in one. You’re welcome.

Avatar Sunday louche

What are Sundays for?

Are they for the regular weekly food shop? Do you procrastinate about doing little jobs through the week and then spam them all on the Sunday before a new week starts and they all reset? Do you spend hours in the garden trimming and pruning bushes and hedges so everything is perpendicular?

For me, I like to have a nice mix of jobs to do and lounging. I love a good lounge on a Sunday no matter the state of the weather. If it’s nice and sunny you stretch out and soak it up. If it’s cold and wet you wrap up and enjoy being inside. Come at me with whatever you have, Northern weather, I’ll take it all in. I can louche with the best of them.

No matter how hard I try though I can never be as louche as Daisy. She seems to be able to louche without even properly trying. She’s the grand master.

I heard a rumour that Kev really loves pictures of doggos so this seemed like a good idea for a post and I would heartily encourage anyone else with doggo pictures to post them here.

Avatar Cabinet saga, part 1

This is a new type of post. It is a premonition of an impending Saga. I foresee the beginning of Cabinet Saga.

Don’t misunderstand me. This might be a good Saga, and it’s one I’m genuinely excited to get started on. We’re finally getting round to decorating the living room, you see, and since our house is Edwardian and the living room is the one place with some surviving period detail, we’re doing what we can to restore it to its former glory. I’ve fixed the missing bits of plaster coving and the original window frames. We’re going to find a cast iron fire surround like the one the house would originally have had. And we’re also going to put bookshelves and cabinets into the alcoves on either side of the chimney.

Turns out alcove cabinets are not cheap. It’s just a bookcase, and yes, a Billy bookcase would be very cheap. But if you want a Billy bookcase that is built in, custom-made to fit your house’s charmingly non-straight Edwardian architecture, with detailing that would fit in with the carefully restored features of an Edwardian room, and also ideally has hidden LED under-shelf lighting, that’s not economical. Ikea don’t do it. You have to get a joiner to come in and price it up, and then he quotes you a figure that makes you sit down and concentrate on breathing and dab tears from your eyes, and then when you’ve collected yourself you ask him to leave and never come back.

Luckily there’s an alternative. You can measure every conceivable dimension of your Edwardian alcoves to the millimetre – several times, until you’re really sure you’ve definitely got it right – and then send them off to a company who will design them and supply you with a flat-pack kit of heavy duty MDF parts for you to assemble and install yourself. The cost of this still causes a sharp intake of breath but is much more affordable.

So it was that in March we measured parts of our living room over and over again to pin down its every millimetre, and so it came to pass that on Wednesday a van arrived at our house and unloaded an industrial quantity of precision-cut, pre-drilled MDF.

I’ve been on nights this week, which is not prime DIY territory, but I’m off work all next week and it will be cabinet time. I can’t wait for cabinet time. I like building things – flat pack furniture, Lego, raised beds in the garden, anything really – and this is a big thrilling building project where I get to make something intricate and impressive without having to do the difficult woodwork bits.

This could just be sheer enjoyment from start to finish, but the potential for an impending Saga arises from the need for “scribing”.

Built in furniture, you see, has to be built in to the room. As in, fit it perfectly. Meet it seamlessly. And no amount of millimetre-perfect measuring can achieve that. Instead, wherever your MDF meets the wall, you need to scribe it. Hold it perfectly in position and then trace the outline of the wobbly plasterwork and the skirting board and the extra bit under the skirting board that covers the edge of the laminate floor and whatever else is in the way. Then you need to get your jigsaw out, with its splinter guard on and its high precision fine cutting blade, and cut strips off the MDF pieces you’ve just paid an arm and a leg for. Thin strips. Really precise strips. Really thin, precise strips with awkward shapes and fiddly bits that you need to get right first time on a piece of wood that can’t easily be replaced.

I might be brilliant at scribing. I hope I am. But I’ve never done it before, and there’s going to be quite a lot of it in this project, so while I’m going to have a lot of very enjoyable DIY time ahead of me I’m slightly apprehensive about the potential for it to become a Cabinet Saga.

I’ll keep you updated.

Avatar Your new favourite blank

Okay, hear me out.

You want to make a statement. You’ve been living in your house for a while now and it’s getting a bit drab. You’re tired of looking at the same old bits of furniture. What you need is a bit of something something to make the living room sparkle.

You need a focal point, a conversation starter, one of those magical items that nobody else has. You need people to walk into your living room or dining room and be so stunned by what’s there that they are putty in your hands.

You can’t buy the kind of shock value this piece will give you. It’s one-of-a-kind, it’s classy and it’s sassy, and it’s in stock right now. I can give you the deets and you can swing by to pick it up in a few hours. You can’t say fairer than that.

Avatar Ian’s holiday snaps – #2

And so it continues.

In Florida there are a lot of gift shops. A LOT. They want all of your disposable income and they will do whatever it takes to get you in their store. A lot of them advertise ridiculous statements such as “gifts as low as $1.99” or “five t-shirts for $9.99” and it’s all lies. You’ll go in to be greeted by five kids t-shirts for $9.99 or the kinds of cheap mugs that not even an auntie with bad eyesight would pick up and consider. All lies.

Initially I ignored these places because I knew what would be inside. Later on I relented for a laugh and, you know what? I was right. Laden with plastics of all shapes and sizes, pirated Disney goods, the kind of nonsense every gift shop has. It was a treasure trove of bobbins.

What made me sit up and notice though were the buildings themselves. Nothing in Florida looks new, in fact everything has this worn out faded murky visage which you get used to after a while.

This shop made me laugh because you notice it straight away and every time I walked past I would think, “mwear!” to myself. The best mwear in all of town. Ladies love top of the line mwear; purchase one today for your gal, fellas!

I also keep saying it in a Matt Berry voice for maximum effect.

Avatar Newsboost – Improper perfume positioned for prosperity

Shock news from across the water as a new perfume is about to hit the market with a familiar smell that may turn your stomach.

Australian nose fondling magnate, Winter de Socket, will soon be releasing a fragrance that harnesses the essence of faeces in a move which has confounded critics and befuddled just about everyone else.

“It’s all about turning that notion on its head,” said de Socket at a recent promotional event, “the idea that something is bad. Oh, you can look at something and dismiss it as uncool, pathetic or sad then ten years later that same thing is the talk of the town. Trends change. People change. Why can’t the same thing happens with smells?”

The particular type of faeces chosen for the perfume is from our four legged friend, the cow. Surely the most well known of all poo types, next to our own of course. The fact that de Winter is releasing poo perfume is quite mad, the idea of paying £200.00 for a 200ml bottle surely bordering on insanity and yet since the pre-order window opened, the website has consistently been sold out. Who exactly is buying this guff?

We turned to fashionista Melandra Melody for an insight into this madness. “You have to understand he’s been pushing these kinds of boundaries for years,” she says, “so he knows exactly what he’s doing. You smell poop and you wince away in shame. What Winter smells is the future, what he can smell is fresh money and possibly a new conservatory the size of your house. I saw him waiting tables back in Melbourne and two years later he’s the genius who decided to bottle the smell of fresh hands. Harness the power of scent and you too could be as successful as him.”

What exactly can we expect from the future then? Is going to harness the power of sick and flog it to the rich and wealthy?

“That is a distinct possibility. Stranger things have happened. This is only the first perfume in his new line so your guess is as good as mine. Whatever it is though you can guarantee it will be a hit!”

Comforting words from a world most of us will never fully understand. Will his next perfume be earwax? That weird stuff you find in your belly button? Would you pay two hundred pounds to pour essence of cadaver over your body? If you’ve got deep enough pockets then you too could smell like a hobo for the right price.

You have my condolences.