The Landlady
The crunch bunch
I’m getting really sick of all the credit crunch nonsense. For a start, I hate this unimaginative terminology which has only come about as an invention of the media, the term hoodies as a further example, which makes my blood boil every time I see it written on the front cover of the Daily Nazi. I agree we are indeed heading for a recession and I suspected we might several years ago, as recent spending levels were not sustainable. I also think the speedy onset of the recession has been exacerbated by the media, who have terrorised the population into thinking they’re in crisis even if they’re not – yet. At the same time, I believe we are only at the tip of the iceberg of this particular downturn and there is yet a very long way to go. In the end, I think the word crunch will not be as fitting as perhaps splatter.
Regular readers will probably have realised I am possibly the meanest person ever and began to curb my spending about six years ago when I discovered I hadn’t as much money as I initially imagined. Although I no longer make any money at all – and indeed must have lost a great deal of money on my remaining couple of properties – I will probably manage to keep us afloat in the years ahead. The Big Son and Big Daughter are now, very grudgingly, paying me weekly rent, although the Big Son claims that it’s not worth it, in spite of the fact that he pays a mere tenth of what the foreign students pay to live here, yet inhales about 70 percent more food than they do. He is also king of the standby button and, in spite of my moaning, his constantly glowing appliances must account for at least a quarter of the electricity bill.
“The media have terrorised the population into thinking they’re in crisis”
With not just a tiny element of schadenfreude, I am patiently waiting for next year, when the Big Son will depart for university, a house of his own and his first real taste of independence. He has already shown signs of possessing my own mean gene and I would imagine he’ll be chasing his flatmates around, screaming about standby buttons and lights left on in unoccupied rooms within days of receiving his first electricity bill. I only wish I could be there to see it.
The foreign students are also very good at unnecessary electricity consumption and constantly leave lights on all over the house. I have noticed that, the younger they are, the more inclined towards this flagrancy they are likely to be. My recent Libyan guest, for example would leave not one, but two lights on all day and all night in his room, which almost drove me to distraction. Last week a new Italian moved in for one month and even though he’s now been here for five days, I have not yet seen him, apart from when he arrived. He has not even eaten dinner with us and, every day at around 4pm I receive a text saying ‘Hi, I am Giorgio. I am eating outside today’, which I assume means he’s eating out, not barbecuing al fresco on Hove Lawns.
The Korean is disappointed his new housemate is nowhere to be seen and mopes around trying to talk to me, as he’s realised his English is not going to improve if his only form of practise is speaking to other foreign students. For once, I don’t mind as his English is actually rather good and I know he misses the Russian girl who went home to Moscow last week. He still slurps when eating though…
August 13th, 2011 at 11:34 am
To accomplish excellent achievements, we need to dream as well as act..