Houseless, Homeless, Hopeless [Part II]

Previously in Houseless, Homeless, Hopeless; our two protagonists search for a home after discovering they can no longer live in a glorified shed, time is against them, so far they’ve viewed one possible home and it wasn’t good…

With the date to which I had to evacuate my current living situation looming over me like guilt from a half-remember childhood memory and what seemed like no sight of a place to call home on the horizon, I decided that I may need a back up plan. For example, Mr. French had arranged a place to crash if the worse happened and we didn’t find a home, so I thought I’d do the same. Yet when it came down to me trying to figure out where I’d go or who I’d stay with I draw a blank. While I may not be the most popular man in my postcode, I like to think I’ve touched enough lives to warrant myself as a likable individual that others would help out in a time of need. Yet, as I mentally scrolled through the list of people I knew, I couldn’t help but scratch off name after name due to substantial reasons; too far from town, he lives with his missus/family, we recently broke up, he sacrifices virgins to Satan … eventually I came to Mike and Ginger Rob, which to be perfectly honest should have been my immediate response as they have a big house, they like me [or at least they can stand my company] and their ‘lifestyle’ is perfectly in sync with mine, if you trade drum and bass for the far superior music genre of Hip Hop.

With the fact that I wouldn’t be pleading Facebook friends with updates such as; “… OMG going to be homeless, has anyone bought a new washing machine lately, I’d happily take the cardboard box off your hands …” I could once again focus all my energy, thoughts and sexual frustration towards finding a home. [As I mentioned before] we had a complied a list of ten places we were interested in, rated from one to ten, one being the home we liked most, ten being the home we liked least … we’ve made lists before and we fucking rule at it! Fuck Schindler! But many of these listed properties were falling short; missing important features or weren’t available until long after we needed them. This would have had me worried if it wasn’t for a constant supply of intoxicants to delude me from reality [here’s my only tip for moving house; when trying to find a place under pressure, it’s best to spend as little time as possible sober]. 

Somehow, around our busy work schedules and erratic sleeping patterns we managed to line up another viewing for a first floor flat. The flat was quite nice, it had all the stuff you’d usually find in a home; walls, doors, a ceiling … you’ve all seen homes so you get the general idea. It was certainly one for us to ponder.

With that in our minds we got to pondering as time got to ticking.

Our options were running thin, like me when I jog, so with only seven days until ‘Eviction Day’, we decided on the first floor flat we’d seen [the one with the walls, doors, ceiling etc.]. Then came the process of filling out forms, an enjoyable experience for every individual. There’s nothing I like more than detailing information on previous workplaces and properties I’ve occupied, especially when drink, drugs and repeatedly banging my head on walls has secured all that information in my knowledge box [brain]. Finally once all the correct information was filled out, we gave a call to the letting agent and she ‘informed’ us to deliver the forms to her office. Her office was in Mickleover, the only thing I know about Mickleover is the most popular bus into/out of Mickleover is advertised as a “Posh Bus”, this instantly makes me assume everyone that lives in Mickleover is posh and judging from the houses, they are… although when you’re on my run of the social ladder everyone’s posh apart from Big Issue vendors and pregnant twelve year olds.

We arrived at the letting agents, clutching our forms and most recent payslips to prove we were actually employed [to be far, that’s not evident upon looking at us; you call it scruffy, we call it “hobo chic”], feeling excited about the prospect of securing a place to live. That feeling lasted about 30 seconds, right up until the point the letting agent said; “Oh, the flat you’re interested in has already gone…” I think in this instance, if I’d have murdered this woman in her office, beating her bloody corpse with my tenants form until the police turned up, then gone to trial and explained; “I am guilty of killing this letting agent, but let me first clarify that this victim, as you wrongly refer to her as, was well aware that myself and Mr. French were on our way to her office with the sole intention of renting a property we’d previously discussed, even though the ‘victim’ knew this flat was no longer available, so I may be guilty of murder, but isn’t she guilty of being a letting agent”. I’d surely be found innocent under the circumstances. Luckily, I didn’t flip out in a murderous rage, instead I held off and let her finish her sentence; “… but the first floor flat is now available.” Now, we’d seen the first floor flat online, but couldn’t sort out a viewing [prior to this] because tenants were staying in it until after ‘Eviction Day’. Now we found ourselves in a predicament, our original choice has gone, but we have an exclusive offer to take a place that’s come on the market earlier than expected. We sat and gave it 20 seconds of thought, I channelled my inner Phil Spencer [I’d been watching a lot of Location, Location, Location recently in a hope I’d become more savvy at finding a property to live]. It was a bit of a dilemma; time’s running short and only complete fucking idiots agree to rent a place that they haven’t even viewed… that being said we are complete fucking idiots, so that’s exactly what we did.

What will Ben and Frenchie’s new home be like?

How will the move go?

How much longer can I stretch out this one topic over numerous blogs? 

Will David Batchelor give up reading after part 2 or will he come back for part 3?

Find out in the next slightly-less-thrilling instalment of Houseless, Homeless, Hopeless…

Houseless, Homeless, Hopeless [Part I]

I’ve heard that moving house is one of the most stressful things a person can do, but to be perfectly honest I’ve done it plenty of times so the stress of the whole debacle washes over me. You see, I’ve moved home a lot in my time. Growing up, my mum seemed to want to constantly move house, we moved around more than gypsies and it’s not like we moved up and down the country [apart from that short time we lived in Plymouth a.k.a. The Arsehole of England], we predominately stayed in the same shitty little town. Obviously when I moved out to come to University, I’ve continued to bounce around form overpriced student house to even more overpriced student house, continuing the trend set by my mother. To be perfectly honest I’ve lost count of the amount of homes I’ve had and to top if off I’ve just recently added a new home to my never ending list.

Towards the end of January me and my housemates discovered that we were to be thrown out of our house as it had been sold. This news carried me into February, which as it stands was possibly the worst month of my life as the clock began to tick on one of the most significant relationships I’ve ever devolved, I am of course talking of the news that House MD was defiantly going to end, me and the girlfriend also decided to part ways. My future was looking bleak; girlfriendless, Houseless and soon to be homeless.

But as they say; “you can’t keep a good man down”, and while I’m far from a good man the thought of living out of a cardboard box inspired me somewhat to find a new place to live.

But before we get down to my house hunting, let’s speak on where I was getting kicked out of. My old house was a lot like Anne Robinson; cold, heartless and although there’s been attempts to make it look slightly better you know it’s old, decrepit and rotting away on the inside … it was also really draughty [a super injunction prohibits me from informing you of Anne Robinson’s draughty vagina – but hopefully you were clever enough to figure out the route that joke was taking]. Due to these factors, our bills were expensive; to be honest the amount of money we’ve spent on gas/electric could have easily armed a small Middle Eastern country with AK-47s and enough ammo to [over]kill the entire Chinese population. But at the end of the day I’m a pacifist so genocide is not on my “To Do List” … but half of the Chinese population is [ahh… in-jokes]. The house was situated on what estate agents may refer to as “vibrant”, which translates as “a place filled with scum”; chavs, rude boys, smackheads, pissheads, Eastern European drug dealers that scream at each other in the street gone midnight, that guy that waits on the corner, asking you what time it is, hoping you pull out your phone so he can snatch it and run. You know those kinds of vibrant characters. Although none of that bothered me, I got to watch a smackhead OD on the street once from the comfort of my own home [he survived if you wondered/cared]. Towards the end of our stay things were beginning to break anyway; downstairs toilet had been broken for time, sparks were happening inside the microwave when you turned it on and the freezer door was being kept closed with a brick [I'm known to embellish stories, but this is all true].

You see, we just ignorantly lived this way, not realising that we were in a first world country living in a third world house [now I’m embellishing]. So getting thrown out was the motivation we really needed because nothing drives your incentive like the thought of being homeless, yet judging by my last house it wouldn’t be a massive step down.

So we began trawling the internet for possible new homes. Myself and Mr. French [my Brother from another Mother/spiritual advisor] compiled a list of ten houses/flats we were interested in. Luckily we don’t have high standards [in homes… or women], so our criteria were limited, as long as it had white goods and double glazing we were happy.

The first place we viewed was just around the corner from our current house. It was above a solicitor’s office. Alarm bells starting to ring when we were taken through the office, up two flights of stairs to a door that leads to the flat. The thought of there being a single door between my home and the business ran by the landlord was a scary thought, especially when you take into consideration what I do in my recreation. The flat wasn’t that bad, although the bedrooms weren’t too great, the smaller one of the two simply had a double bed in it with about a foot of room either side upon realising that there would be no room for a PC desk and no PC in my room is really going to ruin my sex life [yes, that's a masturbation joke... although not as funny when you point them out], we soon opted out of that place.

Will Ben and Frenchie find a home?

Find out in the next slightly-thrilling instalment of [*insert blog title here, when you can be arsed to come up with one you lazy prick*]

Rantin’ on Reactions to Robberies

I’ve never witnessed anyone getting mugged in my time, but I’ve seen plenty of robberies in battle rap. Although, I’ve attained enough knowledge to know that; much like the muggings that happen up and down the country on a daily basis, there’s nothing I can do about a robbery in a battle, I’ve accepted this and it’s time some more Don’t Flop fans do too.

The most recent ‘robbery’ that pops into my head is Mark Grist vs. Zain Azrai [from TTT10]. Now, I’m with the majority on this one, as much as I like Zain, I think Grist totally eclipsed him in the battle and the teacher should have walked away with the W, but he didn’t and life goes on. As much as I love battle rap and have done for years, I don’t get tied into the immature bullshit that takes place on the comments section of YouTube. So I’m going to use this article to stress some points to those of you [idiots] that do.

Firstly, if you don’t agree with a judge’s decision on a battle don’t hit the dislike button, you morons. The Grist/Azrai battle [at the time of writing] currently stands at 659 likes and 2773 dislikes, yet it’s hands down one of the most entertaining battles I’ve ever seen. It’s the perfect type of battle to show to non-battle fans as it breaks previous stigmas set by 8 Mile and goes against the general publics narrow minded views of the entire hip hop genre; I mean, come on, it’s a bloody teacher rapping against a Malaysian joke merchant. Yet, when someone comes to the video and sees its rating they probably won’t even give it a chance and that’s such a shame.

Secondly, don’t go posting hateful comments aimed at the winner of the battle [that you believe was a robbery] because it’s not down them. All they did was turn up and perform. I’ve seen comments on the Grist/Azrai battle, slating Zain to no end. “How irresponsible and pathetic of zain, the dirty fat chinky.” types RhysGB15. Yeah, how irresponsible and pathetic of Zain to travel across the world to partake in something he loves for the enjoyment of others. What a cunt he is!

Thirdly, those of you with half a brain will blame the judges. Congratulations on being slightly more intelligent than the previous batch of idiots, but alas you’re still fools. I’m not inside the minds of judges, but I’ve watched plenty give explanations to camera to understand that everyone is different. Judge #1 may lean towards comedic punchlines, Judge #2 may prefer intricate wordplay and so on. What you need to remember is they’re more respected in this ‘game’ than you keyboard warriors and they’re the ones making quick, on the spot decisions often in an environment much different to your silent bedroom, plus they don’t have the advantage of skipping the battle back to pick up on bars they may have missed.

Basically, in battle rap, robberies happen, yet they are few and fair between; so don’t get your panties in a bunch over something you can’t change. Instead how about you just support the artists, the league and the movement or fuck off.