Where is it? Where is anything? Where are any of these things? When I say "London rental opportunity that just about errs on the side of piss-taking", where did your mind take you? Yes, correct: Stoke Newington, in trendy east London;
What is there to do locally? Bump into literally everyone you know in the local branch of Whole Foods; have a sort of twisted self-loathing conversation with yourself about whether the new Franco Manca is a golden icon of the gentrification that has been creeping throughout the area for the last ten years or not; begrudgingly end up going to Franco Manca;
Alright, how much are they asking? £350 a month, bills but not electricity included;
How do you find a vegan at a dinner party, the old joke goes. "Oh," is the reply. "Don't worry. They will tell you." The joke here is: vegans are very forthright about their dietary choices. That is the crux on which the old vegan joke is hung. They like to talk about the various things they do with chickpeas, the vegans ("Grind them into a pitiable flour!" the vegans say. "Mix with water to make a stringy dough! Knead and roll into rounds! Deep fry in an earth-safe oil! Congratulations! You just made disgusting falafel!"). But the vegan at a dinner party has become a meta-joke now: a good way to spot a vegan in a crowd of people is to tell the vegan at a dinner party joke (Ibid.) and then a vegan will barge forward, all elbows, all vegan elbows, and go: actually, not all vegans are like that. The vegan will adjust the little hand-knitted hat on their head, claw one greased finger at their single curling dreadlock. We have our own dinner parties, they say, with carob. They pause to play a small beat on the tambourine they carry at all times and say: we've almost got cheese right. And so the joke has transformed from hijinks to divining rod. I am related to a vegan so I am allowed to talk like this.Similarly, a joke: how do you find someone who lives in a warehouse in east London when you're at a party? Oh. Don't worry. They will tell you.
No, officer, we haven't touched a thing since we found the leg
Bring your old oil heater, duder! It's possible to die of exposure inside a building, turns out!
Yeah we can… we can negotiate a price for the duvet, amigo!
Plenty of storage!
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And so to the first London Rental Opportunity of the Week of the year, at a warehouse in east London. Do you fancy renting a room in London for £350 per calendar month? Sounds pretty sweet, doesn't it? What if I told you the room only had one wall and was essentially a glorified shelf? What then? What if I told you your housemates were tidy, but not anally so? How about now? What if the photos of the property in its current state make it look far more like a murder scene than I think was intended? I mean, I am quite serious about this; this isn't just binge-watching Making a Murderer talking: I think the last flatmate died there. After being slain. With a knife. And the blood mopped up with the sheet that used to sit on that mattress. And then they made home-brewed yoghurt from the blood, because they are east London warehouse people, and that's what they do.On NOISEY: The Hunt For Grime Grandad
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Listen, man: if you want to live on a big shelf in a warehouse and get Really Into the Self-Cleaning Hair Movement then that is OK; a lot of people live happily that way. But my concern is that a sort of slanted concrete roof arrangement over a mezzanine floor isn't really a room, is it? Like: an openable window and the possibility of building more walls are both detailed as pros in the listing advert, when I consider a window that opens very basic on the scale of things. And personally, for me, a room has to have a minimum of four walls before I rent it. What can I say: I'm picky!On MUNCHIES: El Chapo's Hometown Grows These Searing Chillies
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