Entering the abyss

The boring bit first: I am looking for a new flat from the beginning of September.

How appropriate that in my work place's noticeboard I come across the following advertisement (personal info removed)

Double room with garden view available in veggie vegan houseshare. Just off chatsworth road, E5 0XX, share with two boys and two girls, all 20s, 30s, oh, and one elegant cat. Lovely garden, big kitchen, massive lounge, store room, spare room, cable tv, wireless broadband, w/m, and a cool landlord.

£330 pcm plus c tax and bills, available 10th August, email XX@YY or call Z on 12345678

I was looking for something inexpensive and nearer the centre than my current SE27 address, and currently living in a flat I found through work, so why not start looking from here.

The real description would be something like this:

A double room big enough for a double bed if you sawed it into two and piled the two parts on top of each other. There is a peek-hole sized windod to the "lovely garden". Or a top class mud-wrestling pit for the enthusiasts of this sport where the fighters obviously had practised by throwing each other on top of any spare furniture, thus breaking them into pieces. The crowd on this appropriately fenced arena (unpainted rough wood) consists not of catty ladies but of an "elegant" cat. Oh, there is a place for a hammock [just the hammock is missing]. Look at me [the host], sprawling myself over an ex-trampoline [jumping on own risk, by the way], which now serves as the solitary structure still standing relatively intact. "Oi, puss puss puss [the cat hesitantly approaches] -and I'm told it is blind (the lucky creature, say I).

Back indoors

Gosh why did I wear these good jeans for this place, I wonder as I try to select the most solid and least greasy area to sit on the sofa/chairs. Maybe because I thought that it might be a good idea as my host [the senior sales executive was his title in his email - no I had not seen him ever before, there are many people working in the place where I work] who hurriedly hobbled me a drink so that half of it spilled over me [water, thank god] - fair enough, he was sporting an injury.

In the discussion/tour of the flat the following points were made, among others. In [ ] my thoughts, comments.

• The guy who lives in the room I could take is an "arsehole". When he moved in three months earlier, he told he was a vegetarian. He eats fish.
• I tell him I am vegetarian but not a vegan, I eat dairy products and the occasional egg "That is allright. We have a separate fridge for vegans and vegetarians." [phew! it paid off not to tell I have eaten probably over a hundred omelettes in my life, maybe being a lifelong vegetarian and not converting to meat saved me from a likely "preacherman"]
• This is yo(..ur) room, I am told [I hoped that a quick expression of horror that ran through my face went unnoticed, peeking into a small cubicle, every inch of which is covered with dirty laundry, CDs, CD covers etc.] (The arsehole was not there - but there were two different ones - sorry simply could not resist this horrible reference...)
  
• This is the spare room, you can get this bed ... [top of it, like the rest of the room, is filled with layers of miscellaneous, well, items] ... Martha is sorting this out ... it's a work in progress
• This is the bathroom, hey, have a look in it. A long and deep bath, good for tall people [to my current embarrassment I try to laugh]
• [In the former coal basement, now the damp and rather smelly home of yin and yan (sorry for the insult)] This is the vegan fridge, that is the vegetarian one. [the two vegetarian flatmates were "becoming more and more vegan"]
• Oh, the area. It is ... manageable if you "keep your head low". But yes, there are murders in the area [proximity of the Hackney Murder Mile
, [hard] drugs sold around the corner, my flatmate was mugged a month ago
• The landlord is good. Look at this [points to a window handle], when it broke, our landlord came and fixed it (he has ten properties in the area - for anyone interested)
  
• Yes three of us smoke [a multiple choice appropriate here]
  

I could bore you with more but I'm sure this give the picture. I was the first person who came to look at the room, I was told. The other people had lived there at most 6-9 months, except him and one of the girls. The ones with the right fridge - just an educated guess. Poor latter day people (unless they are saints, any possible beatification is defined by my man, I can only assume)

***

The moral of the story (with a pinch of benefit of a hindsight): I could have left after 30 seconds - the time it took to make a decision. But staying what probably was 20 minutes , engaging in some discussion enabled me to learn something.

There are jews and jews, muslims and muslims. And sometimes, I think, you don't know what "your own" are capable of. If you let the real extremes take over, what follows is not a mess but a fucking big mess. That is why it is worth to find about the extremes - and learn - I guess. In that sense I could have done much better - but I realised I did not want at that moment, in a much smaller matter [I was hungry]. So why would the real extremists?

That is a question worth lots of dollars and shekels. And the merry goes around.

If the guy calls me in a week's time, as he said he would, I might add a few words here then. Anyway, for maybe for you it is routine but for me this was a true "London moment", so much so that feel like writing a lengthy entry at this hour. I'll keep you updated. Maybe I'll have a more positive experience next time... but that would not be probably that much to shout about, would it?