Monday 28 March 2011

The Great Quest Begins

Question: if you knew potential buyers were coming to take a look at your property, would you be inclined to run a duster over a few surfaces? Close your cupboard doors, shove your laundry into a basket, draw the curtains, get out of bed? I know, I know; a pipe dream. A blissful utopia. I am too naïve and hopeful for my own good.

Tenants are a strange lot; student tenants yet more so. Under the impression that we would have the run of the joint, I cheerfully followed estate agent number one (Neale “excess of personality” du Foxtons) into our second property of the morning.

The first, incidentally, was roughly one hundred grand over budget and fit precisely none of our criteria, despite me having outlined a clear and simple checklist the week before. Estate agents, it turns out, are woefully hard of hearing. But I digress.

Considering Neale had received no response to his repeated banging on the door and greetings of increasing volume, we were slightly surprised to stumble across the first catatonic form in the smallest bedroom. Expressing an insincere hope that he wasn’t dead, I donned my best Tube face (if I pretend there’s nobody here, then there’s nobody here), popped my head around the door and brightly chirruped “oh yes, it’s bigger than I thought” before trotting after Neale towards the second bedroom. He emerged rather quicker than either of us had expected, blushing crimson. “There are, er, two people . . . in, um . . . in there” he mumbled. I wasn’t too bothered. My level of shockability had been dampened by the detritus in the sitting room, my first sighting of which belies my innocence as I wondered, bemused, why someone would leave a £20 note lying around where anybody could take it . . . even if it were carefully rolled into a tube . . . and half hidden under a couple of credit cards . . . on a plastic plate . . . oh.

I can’t say that I was expecting miracles as a first-time buyer on a sub-par budget, but accidentally stumbling onto a post-coke, mid-coital couple was not quite the level at which I had been aiming.

After that, the fact that the kitchen ceiling in the third property we visited was held up with masking tape barely registered on my radar.

I think this is going to be a long journey.

Friday 25 March 2011

Hoxton Trendies

One day, apparently, some achingly hip individual thought it was a good idea to go into the hairdressers and say “just shave off the sides, my good man, but leave a decent crop sprouting out the top of my head; enough to twist into an oversized quiff that I can curl sneeringly over my thick-rimmed, lens-free specs, which – by the way – I wear ironically”. And with the tragic birth of that hairstyle, London would never look the same again.

Oh, the Hoxton Trendies; my least-favourite denizens of this otherwise glorious city. That subset of society, the self-proclaimed embodiments of cool who glare witheringly at anyone unfortunate enough to cross their paths and not be in possession of a vintage GameBoy or a synthesiser or a flat in Bethnal Green. It’s the satirical use of 80s jewellery (Hello Kitty necklace), music (ghettoblaster trumps iPod) and clothing (I’m not wearing these neon legwarmers because I like them; they’re a postmodern reflection on our society’s inability to conceive radical new concepts and yet tragically fail to recycle effectively thus ruining our beautiful planet, yeah?). It’s the identikit clothes, floral headscarfs, slick of red lipstick and cats-eye flicks; the uniform which somehow, bizarrely, utterly incomprehensibly, lends them the wholly misguided conviction that despite being visually inseparable, they are each one of them unique in their clothing choices. It’s shoes without socks. It’s only liking unsigned bands. It’s the gigantic headphones. If they don't cause you to stoop when you walk, they're too small. If you require a separate bag to carry those bad boys because your satchel can't cope with the added burden, you're on your way. It’s the . . . oh, actually, those headphones are quite good. The bass is really thumpy . . . and the treble’s really . . . trebley . . . and they’re lovely and soft . . . No. No, Robyn. You’re getting sucked in by the propaganda. Those headphones are crap. They are poor quality and the sound is tinny and they in no way make me look as if I know more about music simply because I am listening to it through a more sophisticated and expensive medium utilised only by true aficionados of melodic and lyrical quality.

Except they kind of do.

God help me, I’m moving to Shoreditch.

NB For further understanding, I beg you to watch this video.

Wednesday 23 March 2011

Bieber vs Black

Just as I am coming to terms with the reality of cohabiting on earth with pint-sized pop pillock Justin Bieber, some thoughtless cretin goes ahead and deposits the equally talentless Rebecca Black onto my plane of existence. Please universe, make it stop! There are only so many vacuous, insipid “musicians” with which I can cope in a single lifetime, and the Biebster pipped Becky to the post. My biggest consternation is the fact that I’m not entirely sure where Justin crawled from in the first place. Who is he? No really, I’m not kidding. He appears one day and starts singing about babies when he’s only about five years old himself. Who the bloody hell is he?

And now you’re telling me that if Daddy pays for me to star in a video, I too can take over the internet and power my way to global domination? (A similar route, incidentally, to that taken by Paris Hilton . . . although perhaps her Daddy was less aware of the nature of said video, and if she started it off by asking “which seat should I take”, I can’t help but feel it wasn’t with quite the same outcome in mind).

I realise that asking for talent in 21st century chart-topping popstars is perhaps on the ambitious side, but can’t we at least have a little 3D personality? A smidgen of individuality, the occasional allusion to hidden darkness, a tendency towards acne, bad hair days, leprosy . . . and preferably a few scars, implied sexual misdemeanours or a history of trauma and endless pain lurking behind those shining baby blues? Is that so much to ask? Fact: if you have to say that something is fun more than once then it probably isn’t really that fun after all. Plus I resent being taught the days of the week at the age of 26. I already know that Tuesday comes after Wednesday thank you very much. And that’s why you’re a lonely blogger and I have over 34 million hits on YouTube.

Oh.