It's cool.. but why does it work that way? a.k.a BANG BANG BANG

I'll refrain from writing my weekly update right now as it's too early and i'm fried/wiped. That might in line with new tradition come tomorrow.

Imagine you live below a guy that, all signs say, hears noises/voices that aren't there. Now imagine that this guy believes you are the person making these noises. In the dead of Sunday night, which for a city is incredibly quiet around here, this guy woke me up hour after hour violently banging on his floor/my ceiling.

I'm a night pussy (not like the cat version of a night owl - i mean a coward). There's something different about my mind in the darkness of night that means a guy banging on the floor, banging that I know is wrongly directed right at me, scares the shit out of me.

From all the criminals outside I have an outer door and an inner door protecting me, but there's only one door between me and this guy, and I don't think i'd have any trouble kicking it open. As i've mentioned before, it already rattles from when the same guy kicked it last time.

I think if I had someone with me, the correct male urges (not those, the other ones) would set in and it would be about protecting her. Lying there alone knowing someone is against me and can't be reasoned with (i've tried again and again in the less pussy daytime) I find myself shitting and shaking, creeping around desparately trying not to validate his belief that i'm up to something by being visible and actually awake.

As 6am and light rolled around things started to look less terrifying. He had eventually let up somewhere around 5am and I believe I caught about an hour's sleep, but work was out of the question. Yes, this post is awesomely written but I'd be no good for VBA today.

In the night terror state I made a decision that today would mark (his name is Mark, incidentally) a turning point. Either our landlord would do something decisive to change this, or I will be the one to move.

I have at least a little sympathy for the guy. If he is schizophrenic or similar the behaviour would be somewhat understandable, however I cannot let the mental health problems of somebody I don't know influence my life so negatively in this way. This is why if push comes to shove, I'll have to go through the pain. Realistically it's the only way i'll gain control of the situation. Later today i'll hopefully know what the landlord plans. On the phone he seems to be on my side, but actions speak louder than words, and whilst I appreciate some actions are difficult when tenancy agreements are involved, if I knew the guy had been given X amount of time I could maybe stick it out. I don't see what else the landlord can do, but don't see why he can't do that if he genuinely intends to put the guy on notice. If not, again, I must move, and move fast.

Finding a new let is both easy and hard. What I want is out there but with only minimal detail. I hate setting up appointments to see places which agents seem to see as a big favour to an as yet non-customer. Try letting a place unseen! Most agents also charge extortionate rates for admin and deposit. They'd argue that they provide service where a private landlord might not, but having experienced both I see little difference. I fell out with my last landlord because I insisted on calling her when the agency was unresponsive. This was definitely a fair move, but was met with venom. She paid the agency good money to manage the property to avoid manging it herself, so why is her tennant on the phone? I can see her point. The most obvious question might be why did she give us her number in the first place?

This post was partly about Google so let's drag it back. Having typed "Leicester Lettings" into Google, result one was a group of map pins giving local agents. This is only a recently added feature, at least in the main search, and it's cool.

BUT! Every single time I want to visit an agents website, I click on the name of the agent, and every time I wind up on a "more detail" section from Google listing individual sites under the domain, reviews, photos etc. All I wanted was the main site. For this they have a link saying "Website". I saw it before I wrongly clicked a single name. Intuitively, the human will click the name to visit the site. Counter-intuitively, Google chooses to ask me to select a different link. I have now failed to remmeber to do this seven times - click, back, "Website". Click, back, "Website", and repeat.

Google aren't as good at interfaces as fans believe. There are i'm sure benefits to Google hi-jacking these links. Not sure what though as there are no further ads on the additional page.