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HELLS KITCHEN AND BUCKETS OF BLOOD
I love this country because without the pricks running it we would have nothing to laugh at.
For example. This beloved isle has become the home of the rip off merchants. No not the Chancellor or Richard Branson. Two men that can smile sweetly as they shaft you up the ‘rusty bullethole’, that’s for sure. I speak of course of the humble ‘small works’ builder whose particular home improvement skills resemble that of a silverback gorilla amputee with two heavy bags of shopping.
My dreams of a new kitchen of which to boast fell to earth like a burning Spitfire dashed on the rocks of despair when very good friends recommended members of their own family to ‘help us out.’ Relieved that I would not have to audition every jobber in the Yellow Pages I sighed with a measure of relief to know that soon my £2000 ‘Homebase’ kitchen in Shaker cream and matching flatpack panic was to arrive at my doorstep, imminently. The new shiny edifice would rise like a Phoenix from the ashes of the dated and malfunctioning set of furniture that was by now tired and very tatty.
Gone is the unforgiving pantry that when tugged open vomited cartons of cereal at will. Or the drawer unit that my some sort of magic was designed to have cutlery put in the top drawer only to be found unexpectedly, in the bottom drawer. That soon to be distant and warm memory, or, curious artform, of trying to get a lonely bag of petit pois extricated from what looks like the ice castle of the Eiger. It needs no explanation when I offer any to look inside the freezer to find it has completely frozen up, save, one pocket of room the size of your fist. With the accompanying, yet, daunting thought of thawing it out, utilising the continual use of a breadknife and a mallet for an entire afternoon. A sight that convinces you that by some strange caprice of nature a polar shift happened and only you outside of the earth’s population happened to miss it.
I look with great anticipation at the two giant pallets of unassembled furniture tumbling onto my drive. A brace of men in braces grunt together over a clipboard and stick a gizmo that looks like a gameboy under my nose to sign. Amazing hoosit this, I think! Cuts down on the paperwork as it is quite apparent that these guys can’t bloody read or write. I am told in some sort of gargled esperato that I have seven days to inform the company of any damage to the units. This leaves me with the startling quandry that as long as I have a hole in my arse, me ain’t gonna get this kitchen assembled in that little time.
I hate ‘flatpack’. It’s like getting a new car in flatpack. It doesn’t work. We tried it in the seventies with Beetle engined buggies, and we didn’t like it. There were bits left over all the time’ and when you took your Mum shopping in your ‘Jeffery’ or Lotus Seven, after the first hairpin she would end up in a tree and the whole neighbourhood would see what she had for breakfast.
I go to bed dreaming of flatpacks and but never seem to wake up with a small erection. You have to learn Swedish from the directions and even given your own spanner but, for the life of me, I cannot understand why it’s only when you have built the sodding thing you realise after hours of blood sweat and tears, its back to frickin front! Or, the ‘inner outer’ is where the ‘upper lower’ should be. For Pete’s sake, what boring bastard sat up all night thinking up these forms of inhumane torture up. Jesus, I bet Mum was proud of him. Imagine the guy walking in the pub?? I bet everybody dives under the table, whispering, “Oh shit, its Fritz with his bloody notebook and geometry set again.”
The next day, the workers arrive. Greeting me with a mouthful of Big Mac they start to unload their van with the enthusiasm and speed of a pair of molluscs in suspended animation within a glacier. As predicted a thermos the size of the shuttle emerges, and it would seem the next half hour is spent boasting of the drunken exploits of the previous weekend.
I didn’t care. I was quietly confident that these ‘time-served’ tradesmen would spring into action. They certainly did. They had to go back home and pick up their tools thye had forgotten before they could start.
Midday arrives as if by caesarean and our boys enter my kitchen with a swagger and armed to the teeth with power tools and mastic guns. This was when I became aware of a secret code of communication that involved several sharp intakes of breath, prolonged tutting from eachother, and a series of clicking sounds like a dolphin on amphetamines.
Was this a religious ritual conducted by all British builders who are handed a set of plans? Did Hitler peruse his military plans with such defeat? Did the gross Fuehrer bemoan his ability to invade Poland by comments to his warlords like, “Oh, bugger, I don’t think I’m going to be able to get to Krakow with my back the way it is, and I haven’t even got a tile cutter either, mate.” Did Adolf protest to Rommel, “Well, of course you have to watch it in the desert with all that sand, it can end up ruining my Panzers y’know, and then where are we?”
Anyway, the next few sentences are not certificated and likely to disturb those of a nervous disposition or pregnant. I can only describe what happens now as brutal rape of my property. Without warning, ‘Tonto’, (the younger one) starts kicking seven barrels of the unmentionable material, out of the existing kitchen units. I look on in horror as his partner in crime offers prudent advice above the crashing din, in the repeated phrase, “Mind the pipework son.”
I still wake up at night in a brown sticky mess when think of the wanton destruction. Within minutes my cooking facilities are reduced to kindling and powder form, and for all the world the environment is now, Ground Zero before the cleanup.
Through the choking dust comes a triumphant smile from both plundering pirates. I emit a whimper like that of a half hearted death rattle. I look around me and wondered what Custer would have said.
“That’s got the old kitchen down.” Said the father of the boy, proudly, whose son was still out of breath from his inflicted carnage.
“Sorry, did I hear right?” I said, trembling with fright and still grey around the gills. I went on.
“I had no idea it was that easy to desecrate a kitchen. Did you need to get an NVQ for this one? To think, I bothered you boys to do this when I could have employed a suicide bomber to cause less destruction.”
They laughed comfortably, like they had heard convoluted sarcasm like it before, and without so much as a kiss my arse, pissed off down ‘The Plough pub’ for lunch.
In the interim of their two hour break I thought of the further possible ramifications of allowing two psychotics with no right to be out in the community back in my home, moreover, drunk as skunks.
I further pondered on what kind of foreplay they enjoyed with their sexual partners. Would Desperate Bloody Dan insist on kick boxing his girlfriend into submission before lovemaking? How would his overtures sound to his bruised love.
“Allo girl, fancy a quickie? Tell you what…why don’t I really get you in the mood by first, kicking you as hard as I can in your vagina, and then, swinging you around by your tits?”
“Well, darling, can you be more gentle? Remember how long I was in intensive care last time.”
I mean, The Who did less damage on stage or in their hotel room.
I swear that this will only ever happen in this country. We put up with crap service. We are crap at making roads. We are crap at the public sector services too. We are crap at making cars and clothes. In fact we don’t make any of our own cars or clothes anymore because we are so crap at it.
How that Helen Macarthur sailed around the world in a boat made at B&Q retail is nothing short of a miracle.
What would she do halfway around the Cape of Good Hope to have Tonto and his Dad climb aboard and say, “Allo, Helen girl. So the old satellite navigational system doesn’t work again? Let me kick the bastard thing to kingdom come for you and you can use my Ronco keyfob compass, instead!”
Honestly, that brave woman and her round the world trip must have boosted B&Q’s sales. They must sell several of those catamarans a week now. Their Bar-B-Q’s are still shit though and their paintbrushes end up as hairless as a roll on deodorant.
I’m surprised it didn’t crack like an egg and into separate hulls. Everything I have bought from that store has either fallen apart or doesn’t work. I bought a huge torch from there. It boasted of ‘5 million candle power’. This made me question, “How did they know the torch was as powerful five million candles?” Did they get five million candles in row and pay some bloke, (lets call him Spencer) to light them one by one? After a thousand candles lit would Spence suddenly look over his shoulder and say….
“Oh shit, the first one I lit has gone out!”
He would be seen running back to the first candle to replace and relight it, only to do the same again and again to all of the candles before he got to the end of his five million lit candles.”
You can imagine a testing panel of formerly young men now well into their eighties overseeing this ordeal, while poor Spence has to finish off the last thirty thousand in an electric wheelchair and online catheter.
After, using the torch I was most impressed. The huge halogen shone into the night sky like an Auschwitz searchlight. That is, until the overhead buzz of rotors made it possible for me to pick out the local Police chopper doing its circuits. It wobbled when I shone my new torch into the cockpit, out of pure curiosity and the copper being dazzled. The co-pilots’ loud hailer warned me of subsequent arrest if I did such a thing again that night or any other.
I wonder too about curious terms of measure that are clearly outmoded today. A cars capability, measured in ‘horsepower’. I suppose we need to go to our local car showroom and have the salesguy show us a rerun of Ben Hur to get some idea of the speed of certain sports models?
I would love to go into a Porsche showroom and when they tell me “ Sir, this baby has 3 thousand horse power under the bonnet.” And just answer.
“Really, how did they get them all in there? Bit cruel isn’t? No hay to eat, and trying to get to kip with a Turbo system and sparkplugs up your arse.”
I would also like to question them on specifications further, boyishly.
“Three thousand horsepower, eh? That’s impressive. What if one goes a bit lame? Or has to take the day off to be at a gymkhana? Or trys to shag one of the lady horses when I’m going around the bend? Won’t that effect the warrantee?”
I will tell you more about my kitchen another time as I appear to have lost the plot and I can’t be arsed.
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