Skip to main content

Interior Life of an Estate Agent. Part 11

Instructions are to take our shoes off before we go inside the house, to turn all the lights off after we have left and to make sure that the cats stay outside. If they get in we must make sure to shut them in the breakfast room. If I have any questions about these instructions then I am given a mobile number to ring. I hope that I can manage these things.

In the event the couple arrive outside and don’t really want to go in, not having done a drive-by, and only now realizing that it is on a busy main road. This should go on the details. It would save a lot of time. We have a look anyway, dutifully take off our shoes in the porch and pad cautiously over the new carpets. It’s a nice place but who wants to pay 300K to listen to traffic all day and night?

What else do we have today? A couple of nasty little modern boxes going for 186K and 194K, both nicely done out and freshly painted but still nasty little modern boxes. I try to imagine a whole family sharing the tiny sitting room. With furniture, a TV and sound system they could just about squeeze in, if they don’t suffer from claustrophobia. Maybe we need to start thinking seriously about Tokyo living, and folding away our beds and sofas so we can actually move around in the room during the day. Maybe I should leave this sardine can of a country.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

GLORIOUS 39. Dir Stephen Poliakoff. 2009

Glorious 39 strips away illusions. Poliakoff presents the apparent idyll of an English aristocratic family headed by genteel patriarch Lord Keyes (Bill Nighy). He presides over a country estate in Norfolk and his elegant townhouse in London – a world of golden light, romantic ruins, servants, house parties and happy children. But this is 1939, a mere 21 years since the Great War, the war to end all wars, in which millions died, Britain was crippled with war debt, and the English country house system which he so values was almost annihilated. There are many references to the ancientness of his family and tradition, but now, few male servants remained alive or unmaimed to work the English landscape or to be in service to the old families. Fearing domestic and political upheaval, appeasers such as Keyes sought to prevent Churchill leading the country and taking Britan to war, and to buy off Hitler to preserve British cultural and national identity. Nighty is excellent, contro...

LOVERS OF THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. Dir. Julio Medem 1998

I should have done some research before going to see this because I thought it was going to be about lovers in the Arctic Circle. Instead of being transported to the icy wastes of an unfamiliar landscape the film is set in urban Spain, but in a very cold Spain with wind, rain and everyone in thick jumpers. Shot in near monochrome, the effect is cold and the Spartan interiors of apartments provide a bleak, comfortless setting for love to blossom. Otto and Ana meet as children and are attracted to each other due to the nature of coincidence, and coincidence plays a large part in the narrative. The two children are engaging and there are some comic scenes between them when young and, later, as teenagers, with trysts in the night and their love kept secret. However, once they’re older the story loses momentum and, at times becomes surreal and confusing as the viewpoint moves in and out of the two characters’ imaginations. Otto suffers an extreme grief reaction when his mother acci...

HARRIET. Dir. Kasi Lemmons. 2019

Astonishing true story of early freedom fighter, Harriet Tubman, enslaved in the Southern states of America. Despite her marriage to a freeborn African-American, she was unable to protect any of their hoped-for children from being born into that same slavery, and being owned by the farm proprietor. Her overpowering sense of injustice compelled her to act. She escapes, and eventually becomes one of America’s great heroes. Her audacity is astonishing, the level of courage she sustained, her extraordinary tenacity and physical endurance, not to mention cunning and excellent planning. One of those qualities would be worthy of high praise but she is exceptional for having all of them, created by her determination to rescue her family and then other captives. She was responsible for the escape of almost 300 slaves Her religious faith was absolute and she felt guided by God to help others, aided by Abolitionists and free African-Americans. Filmed in glorious colour, with deft...