Take a Tour around my Flop House!!!

Come in, come in! Bit of a squeeze, I'm afraid...

The 'kitchen' or, more accurately, pseudo-kitchen. Forgive the mess!

Christ, this is a bleak image isn't it? But looks are deceptive- this tatty single bed is pimped out with an orthopeadic mattress and a  B.A.M.F of a John Lewis feather duvet. Why? Well, I work nights and one of the first rules of that game is to NOT MAKE YOUR BED YOUR ENEMY. Also please note digital radio. I jump between Radio 4, Radio 4+ and 6Music. There maybe other stations but I don't give a shit.

Ah, the feline gang. I never bought any of these, they merely congregated around my existence. And a good thing to! Clockwise from rear are: Super Lucky Cat (a somewhat ironic name given the state of him), Lucky-Cat-Minimus and Doctor Kenneth Noyes.

The 'office'- a magical place where dreams are forged, characters birthed and snarky tweets are launched. The hairy thing in front of the printer is actually a Neil Gaiman wig (can't tell you why I have it). Well, it's MEANT to be a Gaiman wig, but when I put it on I resemble a feathery gothic mushroom. Seriously, if anyone went around wearing it and saying they were Neil, even jokingly, you'd think they were in a bad place. Neil's actual wig is nigh-perfect, of course. You can't see the join or anything...

The front door and, er, hallway. Shirts hanging up, a close up of the Buddha, the felines and an old 60's typewrite as used by, wait for it... John Brunner!!! My pride and joy.

This got your interest, has it? This is my symbol of Convention-ubiquity. Basically it's a small Persian rug with all my Con badges hanging from it like an ancient world standard. One day I hope to festoon it with the severed heads of vanquished SF Trolls (or as I like to call them, 'practice').

A cupboard with work and family stuff on it, basically. At the top centre you can see an illustration of the 'King Power Jaws' drawn by nephew Ruben. He shows his appreciation for presents etc by sending me drawings of powerful beasts. Always appreciated!

A close-up of Brunner's machine, with wonderful advice he put on there hisself. One day I'm gonna get this running again, even if it's only the keys attached to a tablet (which you can get kits for and of which I like to think John would be pleased by). The Zanzibar-mother will rise again!

Last but not least, Guiltmonkey. Yes, Guiltmonkey, alright... I'll stop blogging and get back to work, I promise...

Well, there it is- my mysterious abode! Now, I imagine, it's swiftly becoming apparent to my pals why I never invite anyone around. It is, by any definition, a cramped bedsit. A machine for living in, though, sounds sexier and is probably more accurate- my domain slices into a sleep space, a work space and a food preparation zone. And it stops me getting decadent- if food goes off in the fridge I have to do something about it immediately because otherwise it'll stink up my bedroom and office too!

How does a man in his thirties come to be in a place like this? Funny story... well, not really. I used to suffer the nightmare of shared living and ended up with a grand and a half debt to the council, almost all of it not my debt but the financial detritus of many hopeless and hapless housemates (and I'm comfortable saying that because I'm owned, like, MORE THAN A FRIGGIN' GRAND I'LL NEVER EVER SEE BACK. Bless 'em...). The logical answer was to get away from people generally and live a Spartan existence until things got paid off. Four years later...

Thing is... thing is I rather enjoy this lifestyle, believe it or not. 'I admire it's purity' as Ian Holme says about the Alien (though, unlike Holme's Xenomorph, my bedsit has yet to impregnate my face). Also, if you really want to experience multicultural Leicester (and you'd be an idiot not to), get a bedsit in a big house off Narborough road. The guys in the flats below me are Nigerian, the couple to my left have recently arrived from India and the lady to my right is from Poland. The bloke in the flat above me is from Braunstone but, er... well, it's outside the LE1 postcode so that's still kinda outside as it were. Anyhoo, there's always good conversaion in our garden come Summertime. There's talk of a barbecue too. Mmm...

Despite brief attacks of silly status anxiety (that always feel like someone else's outlook to be honest) I can't see myself moving out and getting a bigger place even though I now could.  The only real downer is I have nowhere to put my mates if they needed to stay over or whatever but, heck, there's always hotels, huh?

So that's me. That's where I live. If any other writer/blogger in the online SF community has a smaller dwelling, then presumably they sleep in a sewer pipe and smoke meth to keep warm. Harlan Ellison maybe...