A right ding dong

On Radio 4 the other morning there was an interesting programme about the future of work. Academics and policy advisers on what? 60K?, were being interviewed by someone on more than that, to talk about the redemptive value of work. An ex-GP said that he had wished that he could have prescribed "work -- like shelf-stacking" [sic]. You don't need to read a thing to acquire a class consciousness: the middle classes will dole it out to you daily with their giveaway speech.

Payday. From top to bottom:

1. Savings.
   
2. For when I'm 65, or my funeral, whichever is the earlier.
   
3. The week's rent.
   
4. To Kirsty, for our family holiday in Brittany in August.
   
5. A week's pay.
   
6. Booze.
   
7. Cash withdrawal done after I got paid to stop any direct debits or standing orders being taken.
   
8. A pint in Wethers.
   
9. Bus fare.
   
10. A bottle of Katy from the Co-op. So hardly the balance sheet of a spendthrift.

This is becoming a typical week. It's not viable. I started an application for Universal Credit, but got stuck at the point where they wanted details of my landlord and rental arrangements. I can't involve Cath in anything like that. She's sub-letting to me -- I don't want to complicate things further for her. However, things are about to become complicated for all of us.

There's a knock at my room's door. I checked to make sure that I am neither mid-wank nor mid-drugs. "Can I have a word?" says Cath. I feel my breath decide to exit from what might be an awkward situation.

She explains that the landlord has raised some issue to do with his mortgage conditions, and that it's likely I'll have to move out at the end of next month. Cath has lived here for twelve years: she's more or less bought the house for her landlord. Now, he's arguing the toss over her having lodgers. We are model tenants, late fifties, employed (after a fashion, in my case); a random inspection would reveal our gleaming toilet bowl.

"It's a rather extreme idea", she says, "but it might just work, if you and me entered into a Civil Partnership. You are single, I suppose?"

I agreed to the plastic marriage plan enthusiastically. I said I'd love having a party over something fake. We might have to kiss publicly, but that's what cheeks are for.

I like living with Cath and Simon. They're my age, bright, well-travelled, uncynical. We're on a quiet, catty street with little traffic, yet only a couple of minutes away from Gloucester Road, in case you fancy queuing behind prams carrying Beaumont and Tilly, pushed by parents in walking gear, to pay £3 for a biodynamic loaf. I will report back after our summit meeting tonight. In the meantime, I've been considering my options.

1) I ask to move in with Hayley. I think I would become exhausted with her within a fortnight, although she's got a full time job now. Me and Hayley work best as druggie dance partners.

2) I try to find somewhere by myself. But a fiftysomething man has little capital in the sunshiny world of young house sharers, and I have no means from which to raise a month in advance, a deposit, and removal expenses.

3) Trina said I could live with her for a bit while I prostituted myself out at the hiring fairs, until such time as I could afford a room. I'd greatly miss Hayley, my Bristol adventure has hardly begun, and Trina lives in a drowsy city.

At the Extraordinary General House Meeting last night Cath made us a delicious peanut soup out of the Lidl brochure that came in the junk mail the other day. We're all in this together: if I were to move out, neither Cath nor Simon could afford £675 a month each to stay here.

The situation is that we can have a maximum of two separate households occupying this house. There are currently three: Cath and her daughter, Simon, and me. Were I to merge with Cath in a civil partnership there would only be two. Cath is less enthusiastic about that than I am, but will consider it. Once we've got the certificate to shut the landlord up we could just wait a couple of years and obtain a separation. Don't buy your hat just yet though.