If you hire a van and they do a damage inventory before you head off, make sure to point out a number of scratches that are not actually there. Just in case.

Find a friend with a driving license who has not driven a vehicle for about a year. Then add another friend who can also drive, but isn't old enough to take out a large vehicle. Place both of them in the front of the van and watch them bicker endlessly ('For fuck's sake! Even I would have got into that parking space ...', 'watch out! Idiot! I would have got over that round about a long time ago!' ...).

Make sure you move house on the hottest weekend Britain has seen since 1989.

Make the old flat - van route more interesting by making people carry things through a large puddle of pink goo (oil, grease, bits of rancid chicken etc.) coming from the kitchen of the Chippie downstairs.

Do listen to your mother for once, and do wrap all your mugs in old newspaper. Otherwise, there will be china carnage.

Pack sensibly. You don't want to walk around with the kettle in one, and a frying pan in the other hand for hours on end, do you?

Make sure you have the keys for the new place on you.