Thirty Thousand Streets

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Badgers and rats

Hmm, I do like a good badge.
































These arrived yesterday. Set of badges by Peter Blake from an edition of 2000, which isn't exactly low, but I like 'em. They look almost too nice to wear, but I think I probably will. They'd look great on the lapels of a drab-olive USMC field jacket.

On a less pleasant note, while I was boiling the kettle in my kitchen at around one o'clock this morning, a rat the size of a plimsoll scampered over my feet and scrabbled into a hole in the corner of the skirting below the sink.

I stood there stunned for thirty seconds breathing the word "fuck" over and over again. In truth this wasn't totally unexpected (the same rodent stuck its head round my bedroom door a few nights before) but it's pretty goddamn unpleasant.

From this you'd maybe surmise we like in some kind of dickensian slum round here, but it's actually just kind of seventies and threadbare. We do seem to have had quite a pest problem this year, and I'm not sure whether it's anything to do with the takeaway downstairs. Previously it was mice. This would seem to suggest they've been the victims of some kind of takeover by their bigger rodent cousins (unless what I saw was in fact a James Herbert-style mutant mouse).

This kind of cements my vague feeling that a move might be no bad thing in the new year. In the interim we need a cat really – a tough-yet-cute feline with a killer instinct. Aside from the fact that cats tend to pretty much wander where they want to anyway, a rent-a-cat style company could (quite literally in some cases) make a killing.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

do not repeat do not wear the the badges they will loose value!

BarryHevan said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG51Z_RLwT0

The Eyechild said...

@ Bigal

Perhaps you're right.. we'll see.

@ barryhevan:

Yes yes, very good. I never was much of a UB40 fan at the best of times. I've put a huge trap down anyway, and the Landlord's put out some lurid green poison, but something makes me suspect our furry lodger is too smart for all that. Time will tell.