One bed flat in Reading....

Greetings all from the Fereday Haunted House - we're getting ready from Halloween..... as an American, I'm ever so pleased to have brought a wonderful tradition to our local neighbourhood... competing to have the best Halloween house... no contest, really - the title is ours.... we've got fake spider webbing, really BIG furry spiders crawling up the wall - and because lighting is fundamental to establishing the mood - we have blue bulbs in the hall chandelier, a red bulb in the hall table lamp, strings of light up skulls and eyeballs... and for the kiddies, we have the very best selection of sweeties... top end, over the rainbow, colours nature never knew existed, E number rich things like Nerds and Flumps and ChupaChups and Haribo and... well, you name any chemical based sweetie, and we got it.... the neighbourhood kids aren't gonna come down for about six months....I've had to have a glass of wine - we were putting up the spider webbing which came complete with plastic spiders that spilled out of the bag onto the floor - nipping round to pick them up and strategically place them, I happened across one that looked a bit too real... even in the blue light in the hall.... I called Fereday over, he looked at it, then stepped on it fully expecting to find it would 'boing' back up as plastic things are wont to do... only it didn't... he lifted his foot and it was in squishy bits... even thinking about it gives me the heeby-jeebies... I very nearly picked up a rather large spider tonight..... I don't think I'll ever be the same....Anyway - what was my point in blogging... oh yes.... not garden-related, but I know I've a handful of fellow smokers out there that will appreciate this little outrageous nugget courtesy of our elected Parliament.....Mark Hoban (Shadow Minister, Treasury; Fareham, Conservative): To ask the hon. Member for North Devon, representing the House of Commons Commission how much the smoking shelter constructed between Norman Shaw North and Portcullis House is expected to cost.Hansard source (Citation: HC Deb, 28 October 2009, c353W)Nick Harvey (North Devon, Liberal Democrat): The smoking shelter is forecast to cost £49,000.Yes, £49,000!!!! Can you believe it.... I'd happily commit to smoke in the open for the rest of my life if someone gave me £10,000!At a cost of £3.05 for a pack of 10, that's 30p per fag... so 163,333 (and a puff) to build a shelter in which to smoke 'emIf you smoke 20 a day, that's 7,300 per year... 22 years to build a shelter..... will the shelter last 22 years? Only if it gets sufficient layers of grafiti to hold it together beyond it's natural life span...According to Google, a site manager in Luton could earn £49,000 per year....You can buy a one bedroom apartment in Reading town centre for £49,000.....A children's charity in Barry received a BBC Children in Need grant of £49,000 and was over the moon..... the funding will sustain projects for the next 3 years!!!!!I'm a smoker.... a committed smoker, in my family we stick with things.... and even I say... Let the B*GGERS smoke outside in the wind and the rain like the rest of us - spend £100 for a job lot of brollies if they're just that precious... there's a children's charity in Barry (or somewhere else) that could do a hell of alot more good with £49,000 than keep a couple of politicians dry....

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