The best home owner job

We talk a lot about what it’s like owning a house. Kev has been renovating and expanding his vast property empire for many years now, of course, while I have been steadily improving our premises with the aid of a toolbox large enough to use as a double garage. Now that Ian has joined the home owner club we have been doing our best to gently and constructively guide him in his new duties.

But I sometimes think that all too often we discuss the downsides: the amount of maintenance work, the unexpected costs, the speed with which nature will reclaim your carefully tended garden as wilderness. So I thought it might be nice to talk about the good bits of owning a house, because some of the things an Englishman has to do to look after his castle are actually very satisfying.

I will open the bidding with pressure washing.

Pressure washing is brilliant.

I love my pressure washer, but for whatever reason I hadn’t taken it out for a spin for about 18 months. Then, the other day, we’d had a drain unblocked and the drainage gully running through the paving down the side of the house needed clearing of all the crap that had built up, so I got the Kärcher out of the garage and fired it up. And once it was out, that was me set for the afternoon. Everything got jet washed.

The best part was discovering that the paving stones around the front and side of the house actually have a colour, as pictured above. I spent a very happy hour effectively colouring them in.

Ian’s holiday snaps – #1

The best part of being on holiday is taking photos of things that people have zero interest in and then forcing them to look at them once you get home. It’s a legitimate way of being annoying because they instinctively want to know about your time away and you can show them through 10,000 photos of a camel.

Not that I’m on holiday with a camel. Far from it, me ‘n’ the V have been sunning it in Florida for almost two weeks. We’ve done a lot of walking, I’ve drank dozens of watered down sodas and eaten my way through many burgers, tasty barbecue ribs and steaks.

I thought it best to ease you into the holiday snaps with a couple of posts, tossed off in my quieter moments, showing all the excitement of Orlando.

First up is this one. This is a fantastic photo of me emerging from the 7/11 with my Frosty blue ice thing. It was a hot day and I needed some cool refreshment. To my delight, this only cost a dollar for some reason (it was advertised as costing more) so I had to capitalise on the moment. I was on my way to pick up lunch from Subway, a blinding buy one footlong and get another free offer which we used several times. That was a good day.

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.

Pump up the jam (in your face)

Do you like jams?

Do you like plums?

Do you like plummy jams? Then we’ve got the product for you!

‘KEV’S PLUM PRESERVE’ is a brand new treat that you and your family can enjoy all day, every day. We’ve taken the sweet, tempting taste of jam and slathered that (using a spoon) all over the best kind of fruit you can imagine, plums!

Spread it on parsnips, spread it on shepherd’s pie. Spread it on Bird’s Eye Potato Waffles, frozen pineapple chunks or a spicy and fragrant Nepalese Kukhurko Masu curry. You can even spread it on your hands.

Put a party on your tastebuds. Slam your plums on the table. Bring your miserable life to life with ‘KEV’S PLUM PRESERVE’!

(From Kev Inc., a subsidiary of Kevindo Menendez Food Conglomerate Holdings Plc).

ABOFB: Nip to the loo

Welcome to back to a breath of fresh beans, this week we’re just going to nip to the loo, don’t worry, not literally (we did that before we started recording).

Suggestions in this pod are:

Weird
Posh
Nosy
Espionagey

Mortgage statement

Massive Bankers Plc

Mortgage Centre
High Interest House
Cashola Park
Nottingham
NG1 8JU

Dear Mr. Marshall

ANNUAL MORTGAGE STATEMENT

Product	Absolute Swizz Bankers Rate Fix v9
Mortgage Number	1563786454
Property Address	Force It Up Your Richard Hampshire Near France

OVERVIEW OF YOUR MORTGAGE FOR THE PERIOD 23 JANUARY 2024 TO 23 JANUARY 2025

Opening balance	£205,466.54
Repayment 23 January 2024 – thank you	–£1325.63
Repayment 23 February 2024 – thank you	–£1325.63
Repayment 23 March 2024 – thank you	–£1325.63
Repayment 23 April 2024 – thank you	–£1325.63
Repayment 23 May 2024 – thank you	–£1325.63
Repayment 23 June 2024 – thank you	–£1325.63
Repayment 23 July 2024 – thank you	–£1325.63
Repayment 23 August 2024 – thank you	–£1325.63
Repayment 23 September 2024 – thank you	–£1325.63
Repayment 23 October 2024 – thank you	–£1325.63
Repayment 23 November 2024 – thank you	–£1325.63
Repayment 23 December 2024 – thank you	–£1325.63
Interest charged	£7208.44
On Time Repayment Fee	£2101.03
BOE Interest Rate Above 3% Penalty	£883.97
Monthly Direct Debit Fee	£1783.88
Non-Dollar Transaction Surcharge	£1326.10
Window Tax	£604.14
Massive Bankers Plc Christmas Bonus	£2000.00
Remaining balance	£205,466.53

If you require help with your mortgage or making repayments, log in to our online banking portal using your customer number, account number, unique password, three letters of your passphrase and a weird plastic calculator thing. Our AI bots are waiting to help you but will never pass you on to a human being.

Yours sincerely,

Ava Pricey-Holme
Chief UK Mortgage Account Executive Officer

Kick out the jam (into your mouth)

Do you like plums?

Do you like jam?

Do you like jammy plums? Then we’ve got the product for you!

‘Kev’s Plums’ is a brand new treat that you and your family can enjoy all day, every day. We’ve taken the rich, tangy taste of plums and mapped that (using a computer) into the best kind of food you could ever have; jam!

Spread it on apples, spread it on potatoes, sponges, pizza and ice cream. You can even spread it on toast.

‘Kev’s Plums’ contains half the sugar you’d expect from other inferior james but with twice the taste. Experts agree with an overwhelming 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and 8.9 score on IMDB.

Bring life back to the party. Bring your life to life with ‘Kev’s Plums’!

(From Kev Inc., a subsiduary of the Kevindo Menendez food dynasty).

Future prospects

When I was a kid, I was surrounded by computers. My dad and brother were obsessed with them, so much so that the latter’s attic bedroom had about a third of it taken up with a desk where two or three computers would permanently sit. We had the good ole BBC, the Archimedes, and sometimes on special occasions the ZX Spectrum would make an appearance.

All I wanted to do was play games. I would make my brother load up something on the BBC and I would play for five minutes until my character inevitably died, then insist on another game. I was never interested in anything to do with programming. I do remember seeing screens of random numbers and wondering what it all meant. Little baby Ian clearly was more concerned with Frogger crossing the road.

I did, however, teach myself to type. Not proper touch typing, I learned to wing it and give myself enough to get by. It is one of the things I’m glad I did practise so as not to be one of those people who must type each letter individually and it takes them 800 years to write a single email. I gave up on the instrument from primary school music class (might have been a French horn, memory is fuzzy) but not typing.

On occasion I see something that makes me want to take a step further, to better myself in the unsure landscape that is the 21st century. Could I do better? Of course I could, I could be like Kev with all his wireless abbababs, throwing them at fictional servers or whatever it is he does all day. If I could really get into something IT-based then it would need to be something important. It would need to be something that would help to make the world a better place. It would have to be what everyone needs and not enough people have.

Then I saw it. I saw it and I had to have it. A new day is dawning.