3/10/2010

My Ideal Home. By Uncle Monty.



My Ideal Home. By Uncle Monty.
Photos By Alex Albion.
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Late next week begins the 102nd Ideal Home Show at London’s
Earls Court for a full fortnight. Then on the March 22nd at the
show itself, TROOPS DAY is also to be held there to raise needed
funds for our injured guyz and galz serving in our British military
war zones. I shall certainly, in any event, attend TROOPS DAY!
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But for now, with or without all the swanky and expensive items
for today’s British home, I prefer my ideal home to be made of
things of old and adored with craftsmanship that is rare to find
thesedays at furniture stores on the English high street. There’s
a saying that things new are better than old and that people are
better when they are old rather than young and new. I think,
however, that people and things are both better when they’re
old. It’s all, of course, to do with personal taste. What they call
fine new furniture, is to me little more than gloried and costly
modern junk that seems to be designed with in-built
obsolescence from the word go. That's why I prefer old,
antique furniture over the new and mass produced.
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Showing Part of My Sitting Room
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When I moved into my Sheltered *Idlewild House 4 years ago,
I didn’t have one stick of furniture in the unfurnished abode for
the elderly like me. The problem was quickly resolved, however,
with friends by the dozens donating pretty much what I needed.
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The rest I scrounged or bought at car boot sales and charity
shops, which I now avoid like Oxfam that refuse to reduce their
prices for old age pensioners. Yet, Oxfam raised around 10 million
dollars last year just on the sale of books, cds, vinyl records, and
used paperbacks of which all were freely donated by the duped
public. I find most charity shops are a waste of time (and money)
for the kind of things I love like antique furniture, old coins, estate
jewellery, and oil paintings, etc. Indeed, the best stuff that most
charity shops get don’t even get to the shop shelves because they
have private wheelers and dealers being served privately by them.
And, all too many charity shops in the UK (or called Thrift Stores
in USA) are full of the same trashy and useless knick-knacks that
only an idiot would want buy ... Most are worthless pieces of junk.
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Another View of My Sitting Room
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My bedroom (shown below) is sparse and simple. No fancy
Queen-size bed or water bed to sleep on. Mine is more a cot
than a bed, I guess. But, that's fine with me. I sleep well on it
and I wouldn't
want to upgrade to something big and showy.
No, sir. Give me a practical pillow and clean bed sheets and I
can sleep soundly without any further ado. I sleep, after all,
for little more than 4 to 5 hours at night. That does me fine!
Whatever, I sleep well no matter what.
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My Sparse Bedroom.
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My kitchen (shown below) is compact and rather small
as kitchens go, but I get invited out quite abit to sup with
friends or to have lunch at The Strand and elsewhere with my
good friends like Colin Campbell, Heidi Johnson, Arlene Browne,
Bronwyn Curry, and Elizabeth Middleton, whenever they’re
in Olde London Towne. Generally, I buy pre-cooked chicken,
and cooked Argus meatballs along with buying fresh haddock
and a variety of soups. Such doesn't require one to be any kind
of cook and least of all to be a hotel chef to feed one's self. In
my little kitchen, I oftentimes talk or sing to myself with my
many cuppas of good Irish and Welsh tea that I so enjoy.
I neither smoke, drink nor take illicit drugs, so my home
is always neatly taken care of and is smoke, alcohol, and
drug-free at all times - period. Smokers, drinkers, and
dope heads are not at all welcome at my ideal home.
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My Compact Little Kitchen.
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Part of my bedroom is set aside (as shown below) for my
PC, Dell laptop, HP printer, and my Sony digital cameras,
etc. The problem with having such in my bedroom means
I spend too much time on writing my blog and editing
photos and dealing with e-mail that seems to grow daily
thesedays to as many as 60 e-mails each day ... With my
PC and laptop always at the ready with my mobile dongle,
which mean I no longer have to endure dirty, crammed,
and smelly internet cafes, except when I am abroad or
away from home which happens quite often. My digital
stuff is now part of me, although I don't have a cell-
phone or car or plasma TV in order to keep personal
costs down and to control one's monthly expenses.
If they need me they can always e-mail me
or come knock on my open door ...
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Some of My Digital Stuff!
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For my ideal home, I'd loved to have some old Oriental
rugs, that, however, I cannot possibly afford to buy.
Vexingly, my abode is carpeted wall-to-wall through-
out my five rooms and fine antique rugs simply don’t
fit nicely on top of newish carpetting at my sheltered
home. My favourite fine Persian rugs can run into the
£1000's or even tens of thousands. Tabriz Mahi, Birjand,
Ferahan, and Tribal rugs are just a few of the many names
given to Persian and Oriental rugs that are made of silk or
wool, and of quality dyes. Handmade rugs are the best,
but to learn the difference between an handmade rug
and a machine made one is of prime important since the
two can vary in price by $1,000's. Also, before buying a
Persian or Oriental rug, make sure it lies flat out on the
floor before parting with your money. A rug that curls or
lays uneven is not the best. The flatter the rug the better.
Also, the higher the number of knots used in making the
rug will determine the price and quality of it. Daniele Gair
also offers insight into the rug lore of Persia or now known
as Iran: "Surprisingly, a fine Persian rug will almost always
include intentional imperfections. In fact, there's an old
Persian proverb that says, "A Persian Rug is Perfectly
Imperfect, and Precisely Imprecise". This notion of
intentionally including slight and minor irregularities is
derived from the religious belief that God is the only
perfect being and that attempting absolute perfection
would be claiming the position of the Almighty."
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Small, oblong, Persian rugs are also used as prayer mats in
many Muslim Mosques and Islamic homes around the world.
As an avowed English Anglican, I would, however, like to have
such a prayer mat just to simply have one at my ideal home.
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Beyond wishing to acquire such fine rugs, the basic cost of putting
together the things I like at my ideal home has been remarkably
cheap. Perhaps over the course of 4 years, I’ve spent little more
than £175 per year to furnish as tastefully as I can my present
home at where I now securely live.
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The only thing I don’t like at my 32-unit sheltered abode,
aside from the wall-to-wall machine-produced carpetting, is the
ever growing number of elderly immigrants, refugees, asylum
seekers and EU foreigners being housed at ever greater numbers
at the three floor unit. It seems as soon as an elderly white resident
kicks the bucket, the place is then quickly handed over to such new
comers to the UK. Indeed, the ghettoization and foreignization of
Britain under relentless New Labour’s extreme socialist agenda of
massive and destructive immigration is clearly evident just at such
an elderly shelter at where I am. Soon, they’ll hardly be a white
resident, or a true Brit, at the rate they’re being disposed off and
replaced by the hideous emergence of multicultural and multi-
racial folks of which I never asked for or even voted for under
vile Blair, Straw, Brown, Harmon, and their whole gang of leftist
loonies inside Broken Britain of today. I detest the very sight
and the very sound of the whole bloody lot, I really do.
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As for my ideal home, it isn't packaged by some paid jerk
at some professional home show. No, it isn't! Rather, my
home expresses my frugality and practicality along with
my own sense of traditional decor and life-time taste that
is old-fashioned I can proudly state without stopping to
"keep up with the Jones." The Joneses leave me cold,
anyway!!
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In some ways, The Ideal Home Show exploits those
who insist on needlessly "keeping up with the Jones,"
instead of being unapologetic for liking things that aren't
"chic" or "in" much like me. If I was ever given a free
£1,000 shopping spree, I would much prefer the cash
than grabbing stuff I cannot use, or even want, at some
boring showroom of new and tacky things ...
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"My Ideal Home," I have already got and I have no
plans to move any time soon to a big mansion or grand
palace at my feet. So, "I'll be seeing you in the all the
familar places" as always is the case with me ...
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Cheerz everybody, Uncle Monty.
+St. Felix, Apostle to the Angles, 2010.
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*The name "Idlewild House" is used instead
of its real name for good reasons of privacy.
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Here's Yalin Caglar With The Afghan.
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:: Now For Those Upcoming New Stories ::
Coming sometime after Eastertide, is Graham
Walker's devastating 2-Part article on Big Issue's
John Bird. He, Bird, has described Walker's
articles as a "character assassination."
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And then, again after Holy Week, we have Big Issue's
Tom Woodlock, who is shown below from Alex Albion's
webgrab image of him! Be quite surprised for it is the
shortest story I have ever written about anybody or
anything. My story on Tom will follow shortly after
Graham Walker's 2-Part article called "Dead Bird
Walking," which I have now edited for online
publication at thebiggerissue.org ...
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Big Issue's Tom Woodlock in Uncle
Monty's "What I Was Told About Tom!"
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Inside the world of Obama's US Secret Service bodyguards.
By Ed Pilkington.
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{ Click on any image to Enlarge }
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3 comments:

Elizabeth Middleton. said...

Monty, My Dearest! MAY I MOVE IN?
Your ideal home fits my ideal taste.
You must be the only Big Issue vendor who comes close to living at such a lovely home that you have created by hard labour and immpeccable taste. I'm sure, dear one, that your first love in the form of Contessa Maria would greatly appreciate your residence though perhaps its beneath her station to visit and more so to even stay as a house guest at your "ideal" home.
I was pleased, dearest Monty, to notice my gift to you of the 1894 picture of Queen Victoria with some of her brood gracing the
wall of your cheap "abode."
I'm overcome to think you would see it fit to use to decorate your nice sitting room. I am sure Maria would also approve of your use in using my gift to you to help furbish what you have for an ex-homeless man like you.
You say you have no plans to move any time soon to "a big mansion or a grand palace." Come, come, dearest one, you can always move to Maria's 85-room Italian family mansion at any time you wish. She'd love you to be there and for you to leave the depressing streets of London and to stay with her rent-free. AM I NOT RIGHT, MY DEAREST MONTY? Of course, I am!!! I do have two old Persian rugs. I would like very much to give you one of them. But you'll have come visit me in Durban to take it back to your ideal home. Think about it dearest one ... And while I remember, please don't give Maria a baby no matter what you and her do together!!!!!!!! Stop pushing me out of the picture, I beg of you. ALL MY LOVING, XXXXXXXXXXXX,
Elizabeth Middleton, DBE, OZA.

Anonymous said...

cut you bitching lady liz. i know contessa and monty quite well. they are good friends. please stop knocking them because you're livid
and obviously jealous at them for them being close together. they
don't need you to be bitching at them in public for no reason.
thank you.

I v W said...

"The Eccentric Club" mail@eccentricclub.net
To: thebiggerissue@k.st
Subject: Invitation to the Eccentric Club, Mayfair, 1st
of April, Thursday
Date: Thu 03/11/10 08:09 AM

Dear Uncle Monty:

You are being cordially invited by the Committee of The Eccentric Club (following a recommendation by one of our members) to join our monthly Open Convivial Meeting on the 1st of April 2010, Thursday, at 6.47pm.

The meeting will take place at
the Arts Club, 40 Dover Street, Mayfair, London W1S 4NP (nearest underground station - "Green Park").

Our Monthly Open Convivial Party is designed as a joyful and merry
evening, full of entertaining conversations, drinks and light snacks, performances by the Club members and the surprise guests, and the unique opportunity to get acquainted with the existing members of the Club.

Fun goes hand in hand with social networking here - come and rub your shoulders with world's leading artists, fashion designers and performers, lawyers and politicians, members of the aristocracy and the eccentric inventors. But this is not just another networking club - as all our guests are carefully selected by the organisers and privately invited to attend.

Entrance is free, but is a subject to our Confirmed Guest List.
Dress code: smart/casual or smart/eccentric. Ties & scarves: black or eccentric (in their colours/design).

Please announce yourself to the Porter upon your arrival as a guest of the Eccentric Club.

We are looking forward to seeing you with us, for more information
please consult the following websites:

http://www.eccentricclub.co.uk
http://www.theartsclub.co.uk

Please confirm your attendance of the event by email as soon as
possible. If you will not be on our Guest List, who knows, will you be allowed to join us or not...

Best regards,
I v W / Club Secretary


N.B. Our invitations are only sent once and should you choose to ignore it, you will not be invited again. If, however, a particular date of the event is inconvenient for you for some reason, please let us know and we shall invite you to our next Open Convivial Meeting.