Flat Twat

I am reduced to coining childish phrases of abuse, something I choose to do consciously as a stress-relief. It takes me back to the tourette torrents of yesteryear, when lacking physical strength and having two older, tormenting brothers, I followed vituperation as a way of life. Curse-doh, it would be called in Nipponglish.

The reason for this state of creative cuss-mouth is the hugely annoying lack of respect shown by the person buying my flat, who seems to have chosen bad communication as a way of convenyancing. Warned many times in the past weeks by my solicitor (lawyer), my estate agent (realtor) and myself that there really is a deadline, imposed quite understandably by the people whose flat I am purchasing as they need to plan their move to Germany, where a new life beckons, he and his "team" seem to be adept only at obfuscation, small lies, delays and minor complaints. Having announced himself as a cash buyer, it was then revealed that there would be three weeks between exchange of contracts and completion, owing to his need to assemble the readies. This then evaporated, but we are left with a deafening silence regarding the contracts. They have everything they need, I have signed everything I need to sign, and me, my solicitor, my agent, the couple whose flat I am buying and their agent just want to know that the contracts will be exchanged on Monday. Will they? Hello? Faxes, emails, calls, voice messages. Can we get a peep out of anyone? No.

I feel for the guys who are moving to Germany, as it's a huge move, requiring £6,000 of freight charges, and if we don't hit our deadline, they stand to lose £4,000 of that in deposit money. Therefore, there is a hard cut off. For myself, should the worst come to the worst, I still have options. I can re-sell the flat, I can find somewhere else to live. But I will not be giving up a new life in a new country, and although I will have lost some money - too much - it will not be so much that I will immediately have to remortgage - which will be the case with my unfortunate vendors, should this deal fall through.

Thus I have dubbed my man the Flat Twat, because of the way he disregards the impact of his careless dithering and lack of transparency upon the other people in this fragile chain of trust. It feels satisfying in my mind to call him that; he's not anything more than that, he certainly doesn't warrant the "C" word which would accord him undue stature. Flat Twat neatly relegates him and his arrogance to his rightful place in the world, in my ten-year-old, aggrieved mind.

Funnily enough, as I ran around the park this morning, I passed Mr FT watching his dog shit on the green public grass. As I realised it was him, the fact that he was so far from my thoughts, yet there he was, nose aloft, watching his rare breed dog foul our shared environment seemed so apposite that I burst into loud laughter, I couldn't help myself.

I kept on running up the hill and didn't look back, not knowing or caring whether he noticed. It seems to sum it up nicely.