[Ben Reeve Lewis remembers Python…)
I remember as a kid being allowed to stay up late to watch Monty Python’s Flying Circus. A programme my Dad loathed as he couldn’t see why it was funny, a good enough reason for me to love it then.
Like many kids we would walk to school the next day (Yes, walked….nobody had 4X4s or mums who didn’t work back then and any requests for a lift to school would have been met with an incredulous stare and a thump round the ear……but of course we had it tough) and re-enacted all the sketches we could remember between us. [We didn’t have a telly so I had to endure this without having watched the program – maybe why I am bitter and twisted now … – Ed]
Rose tinted spectacles?
For the first time in 30 years I saw a whole episode on YouTube the other day and can see more where my dad was coming from. It was patchy, embarrassingly unfunny in places and a bit student, albeit with the odd gem.
But there was an interesting sketch about scientists breeding a 16 foot penguin. When asked what the experiment proved the reply was “We’re not sure but the point is….its bigger than it was”.
This joke came to mind in the week whilst reading an article on Property Wire about a housing survey conducted by Go Compare, of the exceedingly annoying fat opera singer adverts, whose shocking results were that “High property prices and deposits prevent people from buying a home”.
A genuine survey?
Surveys of this kind reveal just how much income Go Compare have to get rid of to avoid paying tax on the profits. Why else would anyone go to the expense of conducting a report that tells you “Placing crockery on the roof makes it more difficult to get it down at dinner time” or “Whatever you do, never clean your windows with a hard boiled egg”.
The really shocking news in the body of the article reads:
“With house price inflation exceeding wage growth it’s even harder to save enough money for a deposit, potentially putting home ownership out of reach for many people”.
Have the report’s authors not read a single newspaper for the last 8 years?
Matt Sanders of Go Compare mortgages (see where this is headed?????) said
“The obvious advantage of a low-deposit mortgage is that you’ll be able to buy a home or move sooner,”
Presumably a low deposit with Go Compare then.
So there it is. An advert dressed as news, like those ones in cooking magazines that look like a recipe article but have the word “Advertisement” written at the top, lest you confuse it with reality and wonder why a Michelin starred chef is encouraging you to use Spam in a curry.
More homeless on the streets
As we wend towards the end of March and the final year’s accounting for councils the figures are coming in. A friend in a London council told me that their stats reveal that they have received over 1,900 homelessness applications since April 2015, 90% of which are from people being evicted from the PRS.
Depressing stuff, and this is just homeless families remember, not singletons but the Guardian reminds us of the concomitant and significant rise in single street homeless as well quoting government’s own figures of a 30% rise in rough sleepers in one year, the overall figures showing a 102% rise since 2010.
“Alas, private landlords are completely averse to letting flats to tenants with no current address. Crisis surveyed 800 landlords, and found that 82% were unwilling to let to tenants without a fixed address: one in five would increase the deposit, and 16% said they’d increase the rent. So, to get a home you need a permanent address. But without a permanent address, you’ll be unlikely to ever get one.”
Points out Dawn Foster’s thought provoking article that reminds me of Tessa’s equally thought provoking piece on landlords general reluctance to rent to people on benefits from last week’s blog [53 comments so far and counting – Ed].
The article doesn’t blame landlords and neither do I, it’s the system that is at fault in fact Dawn Foster nails it when she says:
“Housing is too important to be left to the market, and frankly, the market can’t be trusted not to run roughshod over people’s lives. – Housing should be a basic human right, and the state should accept that homelessness shames us all.”
Well said!
And now for something completely different
The Huff Post directed my attention to this frankly bizarre placing of a toilet.
In all my years in housing enforcement I’ve seen some weird siting of utilities in an effort to fit around the smallest of properties converted without planning permission, just to get the necessary installed, but this bog should be declared an HHSRS category 1 hazard, being located about 8 feet above the bath.
Check it out. The thing looks like a Dais fit for a King, certainly not a safe bet when you stagger home from the pub late at night. Imagine Elvis had died on that thing while you were having a bath, could have been nasty.
And if you think that is taking the mick take a look at this property advertised on Gumtree a mattress on a bedroom floor for £430 a month.
This is how mad things are getting in the capital.
I love the text of the advert:
“Room to share [in an] amazing location in three-bed clean/furnished flat.- ideal for someone who cleans after themselves and is nice to others.”
But before you think “Who would be mad or desperate enough to take than on?” you should go out with council enforcement officers any day of the week and see the sights. That is not unusual at all, in fact just two people in a room is a bit of luxury in my book.
Possible good news on the horizon. I was listening to ‘Law in action’ on Radio 4 the other day. They were interviewing a judge who is piloting a paperless, digital approach to court hearings at Southwark Crown Court.
He said they were trialling it to iron out the kinks and are then planning to extend it to small value county court claims and mentioned using online hearings for routine matters, presumably some possession claims.
So, maybe an alternative to ease the strain on the closure of county courts, which along with the mooted blending of RPTs might even have the, admittedly long term, effect of shortening court times.
Making it quicker for landlords to oik out troublesome tenants renting that mattress on the floor, ones who aren’t “clean or nice to others”
What made me smile this week
This piece in the Southern Daily Echo about a man who has been fined for hanging around in a graveyard, pretending to be a ghost. Get this:
“Prosecutor Tim Concannon said: “He was throwing himself backwards, waving his arms about and going “wooooooo”. I’m assuming he was pretending to be a ghost. The incident happened in Kingston Cemetery in Portsmouth. Stallard was fined £35 for his behaviour, as well as being ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £20”.
See ya next