Not least the arrival of an evangelist at the flats this morning, just as I was getting started on painting the kitchen. It went something like this...
Me (picking up entryphone): Hello?
Evangelist: Ah, hello [pause] You don't know me [bad start... I mean, how can he be sure, eh?], but I'm visiting your neighbours [very bad start - a lie: if he's trying my buzzer, then he's tried all the others and no-one's let him in yet] to talk about Peace on Earth and what the Bible says about how we can bring this about... Would you like to talk about Peace on Earth?" [after such a bad introduction, I can only assume that was a rhetorical question]
Me (hanging up): Thank you.
I mean... that's a terrible sales pitch. I work with terrible salespeople, but I'm sure they could have come up with better.
It doesn't help that my sister has been (and possibly is again) a ley preacher, and I've helped her write many sermons. Her 'thing' was that the Kingdom of Heaven is here, now... and it's up to us to make it happen. I much prefer that to some ill-judged wittering about Peace on Earth by an evangelist who introduces himself badly and lies straight off the bat.
Next up, as I was painting, I heard someone downstairs introducing himself as somebody-or-other from the Labour Party, asking if Neighbour Below knew about the upcoming European Election, and if they wanted to talk about it. I don't believe he got anywhere because, moments later, he appeared on my doorstep.
At first, I wanted to just ignore him and get on with the painting... but he made himself so conspicuous at the window, that wasn't really an option. Well, it was, but it would have been very rude. When I opened the door (and almost got blinded by the morning sunshine), he asked if he could speak to the previous occupant. I informed him that she no longer lived there and, rather than trying to interest me with his patter, he simply gave up and left.
It will henceforth be known as The Morning of the Piss-Poor Salespeople.
Painting progressed quite well. By lunchtime, I'd actually done pretty much all the painting in the lighter blue - three walls, bar the detailed stuff around the cabinets. This took me maybe a couple of hours. Since I started quite late, that meant to lunchtime so, having changed into something less sweaty, I headed out for food.
While out, I had a call from my old mate Paul, who had asked during the week if it would be convenient to pop round to the flat with a belated Christmas Present. He was calling to confirm that all was still OK, and I said that I was out at lunch, so I'd probably meet him at the station.
As it turned out, due to missing a train, he was rather later arriving than the half hour he predicted. Still, it wasn't desperately cold at that point, and it did give me the opportunity to remember to pick up the Saturday edition of The Guardian for its jobs section.
Once back at the flat, I briefly showed him the kitchen before he passed on his present. His original plan was to get me something for the kitchen but, since I'd mentioned that the kitchen was pretty much fully stocked thanks to Ikea, he went a different route and got me a towel set. Coincidentally, it looks much like the set I got myself - possibly even the same colour - making it perfect. I stashed them in the bedroom wardrobe (revealing to him another set of my father's tools) and we retired to the lounge and spent the rest of the afternoon chatting.
Around the time it started to get dark, he made moves to leave, so I figured I might as well join him. I packed my bag, made sure everything was locked up and that the boiler was set correctly, then we headed out.
On a different note, I'm beginning to rather like Demons. It's still nothing special, but the title sequence and theme song hit the right note (which always makes me more inclined to try to like something) and it sometimes seems as if they're really trying to break the mold they've chosen for themselves to become something bigger, better or, at least, different.
Tonight's episode was not really outstanding in any way (unless you could the camera's peculiar recurring focus on Villain du Jour's tail), except for a couple of flashes of brilliance. In particular, while Ruby was looking through The Stacks for a book on bombs or explosives, and she stopped under 'B' to say:
"Bingo!.. Bingo?"
This line was very clever, in that it set up the expectation that she'd found a volume on Bombs, only to twist it round so that she'd happened upon a book in The Stacks (the most complete library of Demonology, etc) on Bingo. I'm surprised no-one's used that gag before... but then, it is peculiarly British.
Other than that, it was pretty formulaic... and the trailer for next week's pretty much promised not to deviate from the clichés.
That said, it did depict a female vampire wearing a veil and glossy red lipstick. As long as she has the fangs to back up the suggestion that she's a vampire and not just a Goff, I'm all for that. For too long, we have suffered vampiresses who wear 'barely there' makeup. Give me a female vampire with bold makeup any day.
No, really. Any day's good for me.
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