Final Straight
9 October
Well, it's been a long haul but we are now into the final straight with the house purchase. We exchanged contracts earlier today.
Mind you it's been touch and go right up until the last. We should have exchanged contracts last week but the vendor seems to be incapable of doing anything without a fight. It really did get to the point where I was wondering about stepping back from the whole deal. However, I took a bit of advice from Grace and went back to visit the house and it reminded me why I wanted to purchase it.
It was also good to know that, despite being empty for six months or more, the house was not bitingly cold and nor did it smell of damp.
I'm looking forward to moving in.
The visit also gave me the chance to renew acquaintanceship with young
Phil. I have now found out that he wears Calvin Klein
underwear and has had a number of male and female sexual partners. He told
me with a big grin that, although most of his partners recently have been women,
he remains open to suggestion. I'll keep you posted.
I also got to spend time with Roland and managed to get a new photograph of him.
What else? Well, there's been rain, rain, rain and rain and floods are predicted.
The hole in the ozone layer has extended over South America. It seems just the
climate for a reduction in fuel tax. 
And while we are on politics, it would appear that that nice Anne Widdecombe has made a complete hash of things with her ill-thought-out suggestions for a drugs policy. Within 24 hours, everyone was backtracking. In fact, it may have done us all a favour and we'll see a sensible debate on the subject and maybe even a review of policy. I should have thought that the first chink in the armour will be the legalisation of the use of cannabis for the relief of pain in medical conditions. However, with cancer patients, you have to remember that this just leads to the use of morphia later on.
Also I went to see Sorted.
It's a somewhat mediocre Brit film. I watched it in a cinema on my own. Yes, really. At 6:30 in Wigan on a Monday night, no-one else wanted to see Sorted.
I went because it had Matthew Rhys in it.
The last time I saw Matthew Rhys, he was down to his boxer shorts in The Graduate. You don't get very much chance to see much more of him in the film despite the obligatory sex scene. In the morning after sequence, there's a glimpse of willy (quite a nice chunky one at that) but we wanted more of what should have been a lovely little arse. Still, that aside, he was the best thing in it. And, in fact, I rather suspect that he's an accomplished actor of whom we'll see quite a bit more.
No, no, no. Acting-wise. 