To quote the immortal Shane Ward who was just prancing about on my screen as part of the Awful Factor, "I am back!". To all my dedicated readers out there (hi Mum), I apologise for the lack of blogging. It's ok, now you can quit the drugs and the booze, the wilderness is over.
Part of my silence has been due to lack of internet in the flat, and because the recent hectic move to London hasn't left much time for daliances such as blogging. Fortunately I am now back to having too much time on my hands. Phew.
Part of this stressful move stemmed from myself and my flatmate having a few days of manic flat hunting. This probably wouldn't have been nearly as stressful if I hadn't been reminding my prospective flat mate "OH MY GOD DUDE WE HAVE TO FIND A FLAT OR WE WILL PROBABLY DIE." I'm seriously handy to have around in a stressful situation. I come recommended on NHS direct. Anyway, I digress. So aside from me being irritating our hunt was not helped by the multiple of horrors which we came across. Mainly in the form of estate agents. Or as they will hereby known as bastard estate agents.
Our multiple interactions with them has lead me to the conclusion that there are several "breeds" if you will of bastard estate agents and also just general peopleyou will end up coming into contact with through the stressful median of flat hunting. Such as:
The wide boy.
Potentially graduates from either Northampton or Kettering University. Say "yeah" unconvincingly a lot and promises you the world. The world subsequently turns out to be shite, and will cost you 1 BILLION POUNDS a week for the privilege of living in.
The wide boy is a tosser.
Random people in the street who try and offer you a room. Namely a bloke called Trevor whocornered us whilst we were waiting to see a property. For anyone interested, his name was Trevor and he had a one bed flat in Brixton. Apparently it's lovely. We told him we'd definitely be in touch, and despite not knowing our names or numbers he seemed satisfied that somehow, through the will of the gods, we would get in touch if we changed our mind about the flat.
Had an entertaining encounter with Foxtons - after a nice spin in the mini and some small talk about what "SERIOUS LASH" there was in Infernos, I also now know what it's like to work for Foxtons. Or at least, I know that "you have to be able to handle the bantaaaar. There is serrrous (sic) bantaar." When we actually got to the flat, although it was decent enough there was a rather hilarious moment when we commented on the rather obvious and unusual smell which the flat seemed to be in possession of. It went along the lines of:
AH: "The flat smells funny."
FL (Foxtons lass): "Does it really?! Do you think?! (cue hyperbolic and dramatic inhaling) I can't smell anything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AH: "It smells of old people. Definitely."
We left soon afterwards.
Due to these numerous traumatic experiences we did subsequently also trawl gumtree for some leads. In terms of flats this was also a horrific experience but in the context of blogging well just tons of quality material.
For instance, there was the woman we rang up to enquire about her flat - which looked lovely... but we didn't get very far. Mainly because as soon as the words "Hi, we're ringing about your flat" were uttered the response was a loud: "TEXT! I PUT TEXT ONLY ON THE ADVERT! DON'T RING ME - TEXT! TEXT I SAY!" Uttering profuse apologies, we did text. We did however, get no reply.
But! The icing on the cake, the real, icing on the cake of horror, was the last flat we saw on our first day. Again, gumtree found it looked affordable,convenient and potentially a real go-er.
Admittedly, this excitement started to wane when we approached the looming tower block in which the flat was contained, having carefully avoided the eyes of the four policemen who were arresting someone outside of the door (good community involvement at least we told ourselves) we entered the building. It is quite amazing how quickly you can adjust to the stench of piss, and as we grimly ascended the stairs (the metal coffin which was apparently the lift was lacking in appeal) we decided that perhaps, it just wouldn't do. I'm not sure I could handle the rejection of inviting friends over for dinner and being told "Just...No. Sorry, but we're too scared." I was pretty scared and this was at like 4pm in the afternoon in broad daylight.
Character building stuff, certainly. Blog building stuff, oh definitely.
