Is there a doctor in the hoose?

And so the forthcoming merger between the Russian National Team (bankroller, Roman Abramaovich) and Chelsea (bankroller, Roman Abramovich) looks to be coming a step closer with Gus Hiddink likely to manage both teams, at least until the end of the season. "Gus", as you may be aware, is pronounced "hoose" (or, more accurately, "hüs"). I hope that we don't get any pseudy football commentators trying to pretend they are intellectuals by pronouncing it this way. Gus is, apparently, quite happy with Gus.

Mr Young mentioned the "ironing" word. The Polish have trouble with this, feeling that it should be i-roning. And, as you may have noticed, quite a few Polish people in London are employed in the domestic cleaning sector, meaning that they do a lot of i-roning. As such, it has taken on a life of its own within the English-as-a-third-language Polish community.

I love language when it plays about like this. Indeed, I love the new "text" English, although I get annoyed when ambiguities are allowed to creep in. The important thing is to retain clarity, not to abide by artificial rules. The problem is that idiots often think that they have retained clarity, when they have not.

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I have a skip in the front garden. Truly I have entered the world of the middle-class gentrifiers! People will walk by and say "ahh, the house is being gutted. Area is on the up!" I can stroll out of the house and nod to neighbours saying "ah, yes, the skip. Just doing up the kitchen a bit, y'know".

The skip is the urban equivalent of the Land Rover, the horse and the Barbour jacket. Having one in thr front garden (preferably filled with your own stuff rather than other people's) marks you out as "just a cut above".

Well, probably not. But I'll admit to hints of that kind of feeling when I came home last night to discover that the builder had brought one in....

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a dreadful dreadful day

It all started to go wrong at about 11am, when the builder telephoned me at work to say that the guy next door had asked if I had planning permission for the window that was going into the side wall.

The situation is this. If the window is in the side wall, I can see (and the window is only about seven feet from) their roof terrace. What I did not know was that the window has a view of the back door to the terrace, and that this is a partially glass door. This is a key(ish) point.

I did the checks that I had done before, and, as far as I could see, I was ok on the grounds of permitted minor developments. But I came home early anyway, and went round to number 2 to ring the doorbell of the flat in question. No reply, so I came back to the house and typed a note, leaving my number and saying "please phone or pop over and ring the bell and I'll show what I am doing with the kitchen". Popped next door and put it through the letterbox.

About half-hour later he phoned, and despite all my offers of frosting over the window, making it so it wouldn't open (even though it opens from the bottom out, so, if it was frosted, I wouldn't be able to see the roof terrace. Despite all my pointing out the relevant planning permission laws when it comes to changing your own home, it was clear that he wasn't willing to compromise and that he was going to make things unpleasant. And, even if you win, and are legally in the right, it's no fun if a neighbour wants to make things unpleasant.

By this time I was in stress-state city. I talked to Chris the builder, but I eventually crumbled and told him to brick it up. I could see that he was disappointed in me. I texted Jan, and she phoned me back, and I tried to explain myself, but I didn't make a good job of it, and I could sense that she was disappointed in me. And, of course, even if they weren't disappointed in me and I was imagining it, I was disappointed in myself for my cowardliness, For yet one more confirmation, as it were, of my lack of manliness. I knew, intellectually, that what I was doing was the right thing, but I felt like shit, like absolutely nothing, the lowest of the low. I tell you, I have had moments of low self-esteem in the past, but this one was breaking all known records. Worthlessness just didn't come into it.

And now I'm scared to put any decking outside on the roof, to sit on. I've made myself a prisoner in my own house. That's how much of a piece of gutless crap I am.

But what if I'd said to the guy "Tough shit, the law's on my side"? What then? Well, that would have been even worse, although I can't know that for sure and, the way I feel at the moment, I can't imagine it being any worse. But, once again, my fear of confrontation (or, to be honest, my fear of myself if I lose my rag) has been my undoing. I've got a rage and a pain inside of myself that is killing me, a grief at myself that brooks no argument. It's unbearable.

But, I know that it will pass. I'll get through it, necesarily alone, because that's how it is for people like me. But, better that wway than in jail, or dead. Eh?

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