Lonely is the hunter.

So, here I sit, fresh country air blowing in through the window, sound of the ducks, quacking away in the background, Sunday roast drifting its tempting whiff up the stairs and only vague Monday Dread in my soul.

We’re house hunting at the moment. Us, and it seems, ever other middle income Yuppie couple in the area. Houses fly off the rightmove like free cider at a pikey convention. If we thought London had spoiled us, we were right. Selling in North London is only a case of opening the window and whispering to your other half “shall we put it on the market?” before a feeding frenzy of thick tie-knotted, Hoxton fin'd “geezah” boys start ringing your doorbell promising you the contents of Pandora’s box if you’ll sign with them.

North London estate agent is the Great White of his breed. He exists to do one thing – sell. That is all. There is no defect that he cannot talk around, no box room he cannot sell as a “study” no postage stamp of cat-shitted grass he cannot tell you is a garden. You are meat. He is hungry. They work in a small pond full of fat fish and they will market, sell, and gift wrap their gran if it gets them their 1.5%.



Why you end up hating them is not because they are like that. You can’t hate Mother Nature, or evolution for they are just the result of those unique processes of development. What you hate them for is that essentially, these days, they do fuck all. Houses, in London, in certain areas, sell themselves. Our flat, god bless it, had “issues”. We were expecting a good few weeks of colon spasming tension while moody city types (essentially us, but younger) sniffily looked at our carpet in disdain, before offering us 10p and half a stick of gum for our life’s investment.

No.

We had over 7 offers in 12 hours. Madness. Only discretion (and a desire not to be sued) stops me from describing the bizarre lengths that the buyers went to to talk us round. They needn’t have bothered. When they accepted our re-offer we were too busy planning how to spend the cash that their faux-gratitude would have been spent elsewhere.

But here we are again, dealing with estate agents. Except this lot are, well, to be honest, a bit crap. Not so much Mike Tyson against Steve Hawking in comparison to their London counterparts as Mike Tyson against a wet flannel.

This lot when showing a house do the following, (all of which I would regard as estate agent cardinal sins):

- say NOTHING during an entire viewing;
- when asked about a feature, say “dunno” and then sneak off;
- turn up 30 minutes late and have no excuse;
- when asked “isn’t the paint a bit peeling” agree and say how awful it is.

They could not sell water to desiccated camels. Either they don’t care or are thick as two short ones.

Thanks god most of the places we’ve seen fall into either the “stunningly overpriced shithole” or “so nice It’s probably gone already”, so these gonzo brained geeks don’t have to even try to do their best to “sell”.

In other words we’ve seen nothing we like or can afford yet.

But at least we know we could make it as estate agents in Hertfordshire, if could ever face having our haircut into Hoxton fins.

Until next time, that’s not a water feature, the cat’s got a weak bladder.

Round, round, get around, I get around...

"as it once was..."

Getting around in London is probably the most democratic thing about the place. No. That’s not strictly true. It does throw up £1million houses next to scuzzy blocks of flats every now and again i.e. World’s End’s proximity to Kings Road, but that aside, cash is king in the capital. Don’t believe me? Try asking the Big Issue sellers or the beggars at Liverpool Street or Cannon Street in the rush hour. The commuters just zone them out. Poor? Smelly, Begging? You might as well not be there. I don’t know why anyone would ever waste a wish on being invisible when they could do it by being a beggar in the City.

Social ranting over.

Transport. The great leveller. You’re stuck with two real choices: Tube or cab. No-one in their right mind gets the bus if they can avoid it, especially now they’ve done away with Routemasters. London buses are miserable places. Too hot in summer (the only time when the heaters are ever used) and stinking of sweaty bodies in winter, they also attract the sort of wildlife that means in some areas, you take your life in your hands. Me? I always liked the bus. You got to see so much of London, it costs sod all, and I always liked the colourful company. But it does lack a lot of the patrons that the Tubes and cabs get – the middle class (if it exists) or rather the workers. The Tube can see everyone from MPs, to actors, to TV minor celebs to crack dealers, buskers, bankers, lawyers, coppers, chavs, and tourists all mixing together in their awestruck wonder of the Tube. Because it is wonderful. I miss it a lot. The feeling of the city above you, the random gusts of wind, the buskers, the ghost stations, the whole feeling of a life in London under London.

Now I have my car.






I can drive to work. For an ex-Londoner this is a considerable shock. No-one drives to work in London. If you get in a car to go to work in London you’re either a cabbie or a chauffeur. Parking, traffic, congestion charge – all that nonsense. But now, I can get up, get into my new car and be at work, 30 miles away, in 40 minutes. I even get the chance to get above third gear. My life in my car deserves its own post. All I’ll say now is that I like those intervals in my day when I am alone with my car. I can discuss politics with Radio 4, laugh at the bad music on Radio 1, mock the chromosomally retarded presenters on 3 Counties Radio (“Asylum seekers are all scum!”) and play my own CDs as loud as I like. I miss the Tube, but I love my car. I’m sorry about my carbon footprint, planet earth, but I love my car.




Anyway.

Until next time. Don’t walk on the grass, cut it.

My canal

Great god! Thats a huge canal!