Oh damn, still in this dream.

We're having the bathroom redone at present. Our Victorian house will have a Steampunk Victorian bathroom, full of polished chrome exposed piping, checkerboard floor, good lighting etc. Very good neat 'n' tidy workmen, which is a help.

Yesterday I took Poor Mad Felix out to lunch.

Whilst perusing the papers in the pub we go to I noticed an obituary for Poly Styrene, whom I had met a few times. I showed it to Felix who said: "She isn't dead, I spoke to her yesterday."
I then pulled out another paper with another obit, saying: "Well, it seems the other papers have also published her obituary." And pointed him to the other papers.
"You can't believe anything you read in the papers. it's all part of a global conspiracy. She wasn't called Poly Styrene, you know."
I replied to this with: "I know: her name was Marianne Elliott-Said."
He said "Rubbish, she's called Grania and lives in Croydon."

Sometimes he makes me angry. Death isn't subject to Felix's whim, much as he would have otherwise.

In his world nothing anyone else says can ever be the case unless they are agreeing with something that he has already said. The papers and media all lie about everything. He is the source of all truth and knowledge. No book has been written that wasn't either written by him, or stolen from him by another less talented writer. No piece of music was recorded that didn't feature him playing, writing, and producing it. He doesn't like to call himself the messiah, because it is boasting (unlike all of his other claims, which are merely factual retellings of his various exploits through the ages) even though to all other intents and purposes he is the messiah.

He is very mad at the moment, and very difficult to get along with. And I feel guilty for becoming annoyed at some of his outbursts.

At last I seem to have my web-connection back up and running (semi) properly.

So much has happened over the last few weeks, mainly in the nature of physical work, my dears.

I cannot tell you much about my relationship with manual labour prior to this excepting it had been of the 'moving musical kit' variety. New house DIY was, until this past month, somewhat beyond my horizons.

Alas, no longer.

Inexpert though I am in such matters, it has not prevented me from assembling and fitting a complete IKEA flatpack office: of which I am just waiting for it to fall to pieces as a necessary and logical consequence of it having been put together by me.

It is not so much that I glory in ineptitude, as that I recognise it as a comforting friend and attendant, always by my side, guiding my hand towards botching the simplest of tasks in imaginatively complicated ways. There are times when I consider it to be a singular talent, surpassing in merit all my other accomplishments by a margin so extreme as to leave me almost an avatar of the badly-executed task.

Nevertheless, IKEA, recognising that folk like me exist, and some of them will be wealthy enough to sue, make their flatpack furniture close to damn-well near idiot proof. So for about 1K we've got an office that both functions and also suits SWMBO's rather more stringent standards. One thing IKEA don't mention about their stuff: it fucking takes hours and hours to put together.

Anyway, the nursery needs finishing (no IKEA kit there - baby's stuff will be all high-end John Lewis, Madame being who she is), the bathroom needs redoing, the boiler needs replacing, and I have to find out about a grant for roof insulation from the local council.

The joy of the money-pit that is a house is soon to be added to by the joy that is a money-pit of a child: they tend to go together.

I used to think that, unlike some of my chums, I was a free spirit, unshackled by society's conventions. If I compared myself even to the most privileged of my chums, I could see that they were chained: to wives; to houses; to titles; to ancestors; to children, whereas I was free, despite having my own share of ancestors etc. Now I am chained to a wife and house and forthcoming baby, yet I am content. Obviously I'm either growing up or growing senile: the jury's out.

Go well. Do good things.