W.A.S.P. - Nottingham Review

http://www.last.fm/user/samlewis45/journal/2012/09/30/5mhsyr_w.a.s.p._-_nottingham_review

:)

Rant: House Headaches - Part 1

Some of you will be aware that since I got back to Leicester on saturday 15th September, I have been almost constantly dealing with a whole host of problems with my new rented student house for the year. The problems actually began on the thursday when Dad and I popped into the house on our way to Sheffield to turn the fridge on ready for food when we returned on saturday. Upon finding that the fridge would not turn on, we walked the fairly short walk down to Reliance Properties' office to report the faulty fridge and some damp that we saw in the kitchen (I will get to this later..). One of the employees of the lettings agency accompanied us back to the house to take a look at the issues. He saw that the fridge would indeed not turn on, and went to check the electricity meter and found out that the previous tennants had left it over £20 in debt so the electricty would not come on. There was a similar story with the gas meter, which sported an 'Emergency Credit Used' message on it's little LCD display. After finally finding out that BT were the suppliers of gas and electricity, we looked all over the house for the BT gas card and electricity key to no avail. We did however find ones from Southern Electric and E.ON. After many frustrating phone calls, I finally got a new BT electricity and gas account set up which wiped the debt on the electricity meter (but not the gas debt). I am still owed about £12 which is the debt I paid off on the gas meter. Leaving for Sheffield annoyed, we did not know that this was only to be the tip of the iceberg..

After coming back to the house on saturday and unloading the shopping into the working fridge. We started to clear out and clean the filthy kitchen. We filled four industrial size bin bags full of old food, broken crockery and kitchen gadgets which were clearly well past their best. The cupboards were left in a disgusting state, and I must have cleaned each one four times over the next few days before I dared to put any food in them. This is when we realised that the house had no hot water at all. Angry at the prospect of not being able to have a shower, I rang up Reliance Properties to tell them of this problem. While I was doing this, Dad was checking the cooker and found that only one of the four hob rings worked. In an understandable fit of pique, he stormed down to Reliance Properties and demanded that somebody came and sorted out all the problems. It seemed that our cries fell on largely deaf ears so we went to bed unhappy and frustrated.

Dad left on sunday morning, and I had a day pondering what the best course of action was to take with everything. Luckily the Landlord's son came over, with a gas safety man, to look at the damp and the boiler. When the gas safety man worked out what the problem was, he left with the promise to return with the new part the following day and fix it. To his credit, he came around on monday afternoon and fixed the boiler, replacing the old rusted part with a new one and pulling a lot of dirty boiler from the inside of the boiler. The hot water was fixed, which temporarily raised my spirits as I could once again shower. Reliance Properties, and more importantly the Landlord, seemed to be dragging their feet about the cooker. I heard nothing until wednesday morning when I was told that the filthy cooker would be cleaned on friday and it would be fixed on saturday. A woman came to clean the cooker on friday, and showed me how she could basically pull it out of the wall which was something I had not noticed. I kept it in mind to tell the repairman when he came on saturday, except no-one ever showed up. I sat in my house all day waiting, and after three 'head against the wall' phone calls to Reliance Properties, I realised that nothing was in motion at all. Very angry, I vowed to go down to their office on monday morning and demand a solution.

My housemate Iain came back on  sunday so we spent a lot of time out of the house, and he decided to come to Reliance Properties on monday too as he had to collect his key. While putting his stuff in his room, he noticed that some of his wall paper was swollen and some of the plastering appeared to be crumbling away. We noted this and went down to Reliance Properties this morning to report yet more problems and find out where we were on the cooker situation. In the midst of all this, I had forgotten that a damp inspector was coming to look at the damp. He came before we went down to the Reliance Properties office, and his first words after looking at the kitchen and in the cupboards underneath the sink was: 'This house should not have been let in this state!'. He summised that there must be (or atleast there used to be) a leak somewhere in the bathroom above and that to properly fix the damp in the kitchen the whole thing would have to be stripped out, cleaned and a new kitchen fitted. Reliance Properties came to look at the problem in Iain's room and found it to be much worse than we first thought. After tearing down some of the wallpaper, we found that pretty much all of the plaster on his wall had cracked and was now all over his floor. The damp had caused this, which told us that basically the whole back wall of the house was totally riddled with it and had been covered up with wallpaper or only partially cleaned off. Iain's wall will have to be totally replastered, meaning he will be greatly inconvenienced while this takes place. Because of the sheer amount of damp in the house, Reliance Properties are going to send around a housing inspector to come around and make sure the house is actually safe to live in and find the main source of the damp. This is basically where we are at the moment, and I shall update you all with another blog when I know more.

I have only really talked about the major problems in great detail, but we have had many other issues such as falling bathroom tiles, faulty aerial sockets and wardrobes that do not open. It is clear to me that this house was not inspected after the previous tennants moved out, and this maked Reliance Properties look totally awful. Some of you may be asking 'Well surely you looked around the house before you signed the contract?', and the answer to that is yes we did look around in January. We were basically forced out of our last house by Sulets (a story for another day) so we were really in a rush to find somewhere. Couple that with Reliance Properties' scare-mongering tactics of showing about 12 people the house at the same time, we really had to jump at the chance to get a decent looking 2 bedroom house that we could actually afford. This will hopefully explain to some of you why I have been upset and stressed this week. The back end of this house is so riddled with damp that it could potentially be uninhabitbale! 

Headspace/Haken - Leicester Review

A progtastic night in Leicester!

http://www.last.fm/user/samlewis45/journal/2012/09/22/5m78iv_headspacehaken_-_leicester_review

:)

Firewind - Sheffield Review

http://www.last.fm/user/samlewis45/journal/2012/09/19/5m2pfd_firewind_-_sheffield_review

:)

Marillion - Sheffield Review

My review of a great, yet frustrating, night with one of my favourite bands:

http://www.last.fm/user/samlewis45/journal/2012/09/16/5lyv3g_marillion_-_sheffield_review?success=1

:)

Cambridge Rock Festival 2012

My review of a fantastic four days in a tent in Cambridge..

http://www.last.fm/user/samlewis45/journal/2012/08/18/5kuk7h_cambridge_rock_festival_review

:)

So It Goes: Why Indifference can be a Positive Thing

You may well have heard the term 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing'. While there are a few interpretations of it's meaning, for me it says that being only vaguely informed on a certain issue is actually less helpful than knowing nothing at all. That, coupled with another saying - 'any idiot can have an opinion' - creates something akin to the society we have today. With constant ,speedy access to 24 hour news from all over the world it would seem to be safe to assume that everyone now has a greater knowledge of world events. It would seem however, that this is not true.

The title of this blog entry comes from Kurt Vonnegut's 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five which is a satirical novel about World War II, and other things such as time travel and extra-terrestrial activity. The phrase 'So it goes' is used 106 times throughout the book to convey the passing of time, life or just to move the story on to the next section. After reading the novel, that phrase now sums up for me the whole meaning of the word 'indifference', and creates a feeling that goes further than the pejorative, rather off-hand definition of the word. To me, indifference can be seen as a positive thing because you are in a state of uncorrupted thought on a particular issue; which can then be built upon with proper knowledge and intelligent discussion. While in Slaughterhouse-Five it is often used to convey tragic irony or for comic effect; it is also used in a more positive light aswell.

Getting back to the main point, too many opinions these days are formed based on very little information. We are all guilty of this (including me), just watch an episode of BBC's Question Time to see what I mean. With the sheer amount of debates that go on on the TV, radio, internet and print media, it is hard not to have some sort of opinion on all the big stories of the time; infact we are almost pressured into it with the constant barrage of coverage. An interesting casing point is the conflict in Syria. Despite the fact that very little concrete evidence is known about either side of the disagreement; you are seen as some sort of fascist sympathiser if you do not denouce the current regime as evil. They may well be, but then again they may not be. This is not intended to be a controversial statement, but instead a demonstration of my point that we use very little firm knowledge to form damning opinions of others, policy ideas etc.

Linking into this is the subject of 'passion'. Another thing I have always though is that the more passionate one is about a particular subject, the less likely they are to be able to have a reasoned and rational discussion on the subject without resorting to emotional arguments (which, in my opinion, carry very little merit) or personal insults (which are totally unhelpful). This is why so many discussions on socal issues are sitting at stalemate and very little social progress is made. 'Controversial' topics such as abortion and gay marriage are destined to move forward very slowly despite the fact that the impact they have on people not directly involved is next to nothing. What effect does a same-sex couple getting married have on a straight person, or even a gay person who does not want to get married? The answer is absolutely none, but it greatly effects the same-sex couple who want to get married for the better which leads to a happier society overall. While this is a slight diversion from my main point on indifference, it highlights how indifference can actually lead to great social progression. I am 'indifferent' on the subject of gay marriage because it does not directly have any impact on me, but I can still make a sensible decision on the matter; and one which would greatly benefit many people in the country. Instead of this however, emotional arguments made by the anti-gay marriage brigade and the relative pragmatism of governments means that the arguments of the gay community fall on deaf or tired ears which only creates unhappiness for a fairly large section of society.

I am aware that this has turned into a rather long and convoluted 'discussion' on gay marriage, a topic which effects me very little, but I hope my point on indifference is clear if a little abstract. I think what I am trying to say is that emotion needs to be taken out of discussions so that rational and clear facts can be presented; and also governments and individuals need to think who is actually effected (and being against something in principle even though it effects you little, is not being 'effected') while discussing anything in the news. If just for once, someone sat down with a clear and indifferent head and looked at all the valid evidence, then maybe we would see better social progress in the world :)