I like a takeaway curry. Until a few months ago, I often went to my local curry house. However, it seems they had a health inspection and failed miserably. Not wishing to catch the bubonic plague from a chicken bhuna, I have avoided the place, until the hygiene rating is improved.

Saturday evening though, I was in desperate need of a curry, so, along with Simon and John, decided to go to The Shaad in Weston Village. This takeaway restaurant will only be a short walk from my new house and it has come highly recommended.

Whenever I go to a new curry house, I think the fairest way to compare it, is to judge a common dish available everywhere. The classic. The Chicken Tikka Masala. Chunks of chicken, soaked in a thick, red, slightly spicy, creamy sauce. It looks like bloody offal, but if cooked well, is delicious.

The Shaad’s offering was good. Very good. I will certainly be going back and next time, may be adventurous enough to try the balti!

After devouring my takeaway, I emptied the brown bag which it came in. The curry house’s answer to a party bag. Along with a paper hat, plastic toy and slice of birthday cake, it was full of the usual presents. A papadum. Strangely unpopular with many people, but I like them a lot. I ate my giant crisp for dessert. A frozen lemon full of sorbet would have been better, but I had no complaints. Then there is the customary pot of strange white fluid. Nobody knows what it really is. It nearly always ends up in the bin and this time was no exception. Last and by ALL means least is the small polythene bag full of lukewarm vegetables – again, whatever Indian restaurant or takeaway you visit in the world, your wonderful curry is always accompanied by a bag off this shit.

Overall, top marks for the curry, I always love papadums and would welcome a few more, but no need for the other free stuff.

The most suitable photo for an Indian takeaway I could find

I have come to the conclusion that my landlord has a voodoo doll. Not of me, but of my flat. Since advising of my imminent departure from the property, things have been going wrong – primarily with the bathroom sink. On Thursday night, the cold tap broke. It is completely knackered. You can spin it and it goes around and around and around. It makes a great spinning top, but you’ve got more chance of getting water from a stone in the desert. Never mind, I’m good at improvising. I’ll use the hot tap while brushing my teeth. True, I’ll risk third degree burns to my mouth and tongue, but I’m a daredevil and a menace to society – I just don’t give a shit!

Then, just two days later, the hot tap broke. I have no working taps in the bathroom. I know your typical bloke doesn’t wash his hands after going to the toilet, but as a rule, I like to clean myself after answering a call of nature. I was therefore left with the dilemma, wash my hands in the kitchen sink, which I thought was unhygienic in itself, or clean them under the shower. I chose the latter. Therefore, every time I piss or shit, I am forced to scrub my hands under a running shower. It is more difficult and messy than you could possibly imagine. Despite letting my agency know at the weekend, they still haven’t fixed it. The sooner I move out, the better!

This form of tap is about as useful as my bathroom tap

As part of my moving out routine, I am cancelling all kinds of utilities and services. The latest one I planned to chop was Love Film. When I signed up, you used to be able to cancel online. Now, to make things more difficult, you have to call them up. It was obvious the operator was reading from a script, because he clearly didn’t know how to handle my reason for leaving – “there is nothing left on Love Film that I want to rent”.

OK, I was lying. There is, of course, The Best Of Neighbours: The Defining Moments, which I’m yet to acquire. Who wouldn’t want to relive Karl Kennedy’s affair with Sarah, and Susan reminding him of it every episode for fifty years. Madge dying. That was sad. Julie Martin dying. That was funny. Then there’s Bouncer the dog, who caught rabies, bit Lou, before being shot by Harold. So many memories. Some of them true, some of them made up by me.

Enough about Neighbours, I called Love Film to cancel my subscription. To cut a long story short, I haven’t. Anyone who has seen that episode of Friends (a show I used to love as a teenager and now despise now I have grown up), when Chandler tries to cancel his gym membership, will know how difficult it is. Basically, I signed up with them for another 3 months. 3 months for the price of 1, mind. I just have to remember to cancel in November or dirty Love Film and their tax-dodgy parent company, Amazon, win.