Why I don't live in London

‘Where are you going to go?’ where are you going to go? That's what everyone kept asking me, my friends my neighbours, my tenant and my letting agent. And the answer was always the same. ‘I don’t know.’
I didn’t know, I hadn’t made any plans at all. I’ve been thinking I might want to live in London, but I can’t view properties from here. I will wait until I am free of the house, take the tools out of my van and then drive up there; I can sleep in the back if I need to.
‘You’re the most interesting person in the village... ever’ said my postman.
It’s a curse you know. It’s not a competition. I don’t try and be interesting. As soon as I'm on the road, any road, I'm just your average transient seeker. It’s when I'm a permanent resident at the side of the road in my house, that's when my ever present wanderlust, my lack of ties, plan, and commitment makes him think I’m ‘the most interesting person in the village’ so it’s time to go and find an interest.
I had a fantasy, a tall order it would appear. I wanted to try living in a house share in London. It would, I thought provide me with not just accommodation but a social life and inspiration too. I would write during the day, drink wine around the communal dining table at night whilst chatting with inspired and creative people, who weren’t competing to be interesting, didn’t even know they were, but whose interests and conversation extended beyond mortgage payments and kids. Loose one and you’re liberated; loose the other and you’re devastated.
Simple I thought. So many of the ads on the find a room web sites implied my potential new abode would provide a complete new life. Accommodation, friends and social life like a family, they even posted photos of them all holding up wine glasses, huggy on the couch, ‘Cheers, come live with us’
I soon found that just like dating sites, people lie. In my honest manner I assume everyone is of the same thinking but they are not. Why tell the truth, when you can over hype, misinform and generally portray a scenario where, if 20% of the house use the cooker at the same time its sounds like dinner on Walton’s Mountain.
Communal living seemed to mean sharing a bathroom. Kitchens didn’t have room for more than 2 people at one time let alone a dining table. If they did it was a territorial thing; and being last lodger in, I’d be lucky to have a work surface to lean against whilst eating my bowl of gruel. ‘Please could I have some more, space?’
The lounges were simply bedroom number 4, 5 or 6. High demand, high rent, high density. Why have a room with a TV and a couch when you can have another £150 rent a week coming in. It appeared that the inhabitants found out more about each other than they had ever know in the short time it took me to see the place and ask a few questions about home life.
On top of that, just to get my foot in the door I had to sell myself. ‘I’ll have you know I was the most interesting person where I come from’, why wouldn’t they want me here, the only question is why I would want to be’ and every time the answer was I wouldn’t.
Its soul destroying, it’s disheartening, its illusion shattering. Holding all my hopes on the ad that offered everything I envisioned, not even bothering to schedule any more viewings. Then as soon as the front door opened I knew that untying my shoe laces was wasted time and energy. As I expanded my budget, criteria and the perimeters of my chosen location. The disappointment increased proportionately.
It started with a walk up some piss stinking concrete stairs to the 3rd floor of a housing block where windows and doors had iron bars across them. Hardly a good first impression, the entrance hall was the largest space there was. My first realization that every room had a bed in it, but the selling point was one girl had a TV and sometimes you could sit on her bed and watch it.
The search continued with a visit to a house that ‘Daddy has bought for me’ he lives across the road ‘he would check your references; I don't understand that kind of thing.’
I'm offered red wine, to accompany my tour, I though I’d come to see a room not attend an exhibition launch. The girl likes to play piano during the day.
‘I play mainly classical’ she tells me. I visualize myself writing as ‘November Rain drifts through the house, oh wait, you said classical. A hooray Henry is the other flat mate who’s clearly never done a useful days work in his life. I am sat down to be interviewed. Books clubs are suggested, more viewers join us and another tetra pack of red is opened. University balls are discussed and gap year travels, ‘More wine? Did you hear that recital on Radio 3?’
‘I sometimes half listen to 6 music, does that count?’
‘When did you graduate university?’
‘I didn’t I went straight into the real world and have lived there and supported myself ever since.’
They are half my age, 4 times my education, full of knowledge and no wisdom on how to apply it. I leave them in their mythical world of merlot and Mozart and go back to the hard road.

I had stored the contents of my partially furnished 3 bedroom house into the garage, before my tenant and her 2 children moved in. Couch, futon, and computer desk were all stuffed in next to a dismantled wardrobe and boxes of cloths, kitchenware and toiletries. And despite the stacked chaos kitchen chairs and the leaning tower of white goods, the garage still had more room than in most of the ‘double room’s I looked at.


I couldn’t live in the garage I had made the mistake of telling my tenant how I had rented my last house out to students and returning from a trip too early I have lived in my garage until they vacated. She would be on her guard; I had just blown that option.
When I lived in the house I had only utilized half of it. The tiny bedroom had just about enough room for a bed. I only used one ring of my hob. I spent my days between the lap top and wondering round the garden; so a single room with a nearby park seemed like a perfectly adequate substitute. How compact my life has become, the logistically unfriendly vinyl, replaced by cardboard box friendly CD’s, upgraded and downsized to Mp3's, now I don’t even need my iPod and dock. It’s all there with my other documents and communication equipment in one lap top and an external hard drive so I don’t lose it all again.
A table by a window and bed was all I required. A wash now and again and a heated meal once a day. Not too much to ask for was it? No it wasn’t, but my basic needs became a preference which mutated into a strict criteria. How could I have my prolonged and relaxing Friday night bath when the only toilet in the house share was in the same room? Lots of bath bubble to hide my modesty? And clearly food shopping would be a daily occurrence with such a tiny fridge, and a freezer compartment where I could store my 3 allotted ice cubes.
Out of the windows of the bedrooms I viewed, was not the bustling cosmopolitan street I had envisioned, nor the view of a landmark skyline. Not even the tree lined Suburban Avenue of pavement parked cars. But a concrete square ‘ideal for barbeques’ and a raised brick oblong containing weedy soil where ‘we want to start growing out own vegetables’
‘In there? Really?’ It’s no more than a permanent flower pot.
The London dwellers idea of space was very different to my own. I had liked the idea of having my own oyster card, knowing what carriage of the tube to get in so the doors opened opposite the exit of my chosen station. Jogging round the park with my earphones in and buying my veg for the local greengrocer. A reality I managed after only a few days in Seoul, Hong Kong, even Ullan Baatar, well without the jogging and underground bit. It’s that urban hunter gatherer instinct that inevitably kicks in. Strange how a low budget hotel room is so easy to find and quick to satisfy but the search for a house share is so fruitless.
I applied to be number 7 in a kind of commune house. The room was tiny but when one someone moves out everyone upgrades and up sizes. I liked the vibe, I liked the 4 people I met, and I liked the house. I made a good first impression ‘I'm living in my van’ was an experience they could all relate to. I followed it up with a huge faux pas by saying I had eaten that morning at McDonalds, when the truth was I had used there a car park, toilet and got a coffee there. I think I could have really got on well there; there was even a place to store my bike undercover. I was already making the best of my bedroom in my head, interior design of a 6’x 8’ room.
‘It’s ok to keep your wardrobe on the landing’
‘Wardrobe? I have stackable plastic boxes, I've lived out of panniers and expanded to a van, this is all the room I need’
They still had other people to see, ‘we’ll let me know.’
Down the road was another house with a massive room but sharing with a very strange woman. The interview didn’t go well. We were poles apart, I have some other places to see, ‘I’ll let you know’
I spend my days, usually in a supermarket car park, handy for toilets and supplies, surfing with my dongle hanging from my sun visor. Copy paste my introduction with a little personalized edit, and if an ad comes up that really sounds like it is calling me, I call them and arrange a viewing.
‘I can come now?’ what I mean is, can I move in now. I can’t lie; I will be around a lot. I ‘work from home’ that's a deal breaker from the off, despite the fact my rent money is guaranteed, as guaranteed as my rent money. The rent income for a 3 bed roomed detached house and garden but with no access to the garage, just about covers the price of a single room plus utilities an hours drive way. But if I wanted to save money I wouldn’t be looking for a place in one of the world’s most expensive cities. I’d be living in a van. Which I am, could be worse. From my little distant corner of the supermarket car park I become aware it’s the instinctive corner of choice for those of us whose only use for as trolley is when we don't have out accommodating vehicles anymore. The windows of these cars, outcast from prime shopper parking positions; are obscured by the tears of condensation from the hopeless breath of their permanent inhabitants. Once again my abode is palatial compared to London accommodation. Thermarest and a duvet, camping stove and a bicycle, shelving and lighting, carpeted and self contained. With a window and a bathroom it would meet my needs. And when I look out the windscreen at Tesco’s and toilets it virtually does.
When the room sites have nothing new on offer I look at camper vans on eBay, but I did that last year, I want to be a Londoner this spring. Well I did, no wonder so many people end up homeless in this city, I can see how it happens.
Small rooms, small houses, big rent, big disappointment.
There were so many last straws before I bailed out.

I prematurely ended a debouched weekend in the country to drive 2 hours to see a room that, although adequate in size and location, was shown to me by a grumpy American girl who was vetting the viewers on behalf of the absent live in landlady. She had been given more power than she disserved and her own agenda was put before the interests of the household. I’d gotten on well with the landlady when we spoke on the phone. This girl wouldn’t give me 10 minutes of her time which I thought was very selfish considering the distance I had come. It was unfair and I wanted to protest but why would I protest for the right to share a house with such an egocentric woman.
It’s not a good way to spend a Sunday night, to start a second week of viewings, sitting in the van in a McDonald’s car park. A new room came up on the site. ‘Mature housemates’ it said, I call immediately and push slightly for a viewing tonight the lady agrees. It’s looking good, just off of a busy street, by Finsbury Park, 4 story Victorian house, big room, but only the darkness of somebody else’s unkempt garden outside the window. The share was with 3 others the live in landlady, a Brazilian girl and an English guy who also worked from home. He had a complexion that said he never left it. The only fresh air he got was when he smoked out of his open window. I had a cup of tea with the landlady. I couldn’t help but feel the lounge/ diner/ kitchen was very much her territory although she insisted communal and equality was the vibe and the rule. Whilst I spoke my spiel and sold myself to the room; the scraping, clomping and banging from above was grating my teeth. It was the room of the Brazilian who would be vacating it, to move above me. I couldn’t put up with that wooden floor stomp; I would be up those stairs to tear her off a strip. But I gave her the benefit of the doubt; perhaps she is moving her stuff now.
It was defiantly one of the better places I had seen. It would mean stretching my budget to the point of noodle dinners.

Sleeping in the back of a windowless van means opening the doors into the unknown, when bursting for the obligatory night time piss. Torn between parking under the security of a camera in an industrial estate or the privacy of waste ground where the bad omen of burnt out cars are scattered like random tombstones.
Too early for one particular evening viewing, I sat in the car park of a retail park. Under the bright lights of a Comet, looking for hope on the laptop screen. I felt the van rock. My truck driver instinct kicked in. That rock when parked on a loading bay meant unloading was about to begin, but I was in a parking bay. I grabbed my bar of scaffold I keep in the door pocket to keep road rage at bay; I go to the back doors and there is some kid trying to get in. He takes off fast, like his well practiced trade has taught him. Wanting the thrill of the chase as much as the contents of the van.
Back in the cab, I’m glad the back doors were locked when I consider the last essentials of my compact life are in there. The little fucker and his friends are now throwing stones at the van. What can I do? Give chase so his cohorts can break into my vacated vehicle? I have no choice but to drive off. I'm taunted by the chav urchin as he makes his primal monkey victory gestures from the safety of the verge, there being no trees to complete his devolution. I can’t run him over and it would be a waste of a badly thrown scaffold bar, which would only be giving him my ammunition. I can rise above, in court I would be the guilty person anyway, picking on a poor defenceless child.
Why would I want to live here? Was the question I took to the viewing, and ‘I don’t’ was the once again the answer I took away from a house of 3 men living in the dominant shadow of Amber. They stood timidly in the kitchen whilst we awaited her home coming. I was offered tea; water was boiled in a saucepan. Cupboards previously unexplored were opened in search of a spare cup. Sugar was bought from a private stash in another room. Conversation was dominated by a speed freak as we all stood to attention around the seats of the kitchen table. His chatter slowed and he cowered away when the arrival of Amber, who works in media, became imminent. Sure enough she was an intimidating woman. Power dressed and assertive nature. She gave me 5 minutes intense grilling followed by cross examination and went to her room to watch TV. I would not be submitting my application to such a dominant woman. How would she have dealt with the thug kids? The same authoritative way she dealt with her roommates I expect.
Sleeping in the van didn’t bode well for such an area so I drove round the North Circular and found a busy lay-by on the side of the A12, far more familiar territory, the warmth and camaraderie parked between the artics.
With the morning all perspective has been lost. No one has bothered to call or even send the ‘we thought about it; no’ text.
I started this homelessness with 3 clear choices Thailand, India or London. I weighed up my options, considered every angle and opted for London; I'm beginning to think it was a miscalculation. If I don’t do this is it failure to achieve or failure to make the right decision?
Another McDonald’s car park, now viewing every ad with a cynicism as to why I couldn’t live there as opposed to the thrill of imminent contentment. I call on a well balanced friend, who can see the big picture and offers some good advice. ‘Why London, choose another city, choose Norwich, and the money you save on rent you can spend on the commute if you need to be there. You could still even have your oyster card.’ I sit in the comfort of her exceptionally large couch and have a 2nd cup of tea, but there is a discomfort, I can sense it but I'm not considering it. It’s in the stance, the body language, the conversation. It eventually has to be voiced to me, ‘well I have to go out, you’re welcome to stay, use the shower.’ Shit; I've just outstayed my welcome, I never do that, I usually leave early, it’s a trade mark. Now I'm the homeless thing on the couch that will not go. I go, I'm embarrassed. I have somewhere to go of course; I just don’t haven anywhere to stay.
Another car park another grey day, rain outside the window, condensation inside. I text a friend who has a room in Norwich the reply and invite are not instant.
I'm miles from London now and I'm not even interested in the ads I look at. I'm really out of options, I'm really homeless. I get an email from a German bike couple I met in Mongolia, ‘we are in India where are you?’ my reply is not instant.
I find a petrol station which has a truck park at the side of it. I stop and watch the grey get darker, rain rattles the roof at least it’s not stones, condensation drips, my tea steams, a land of dampness and moisture. The only dryness is the stale disappointment of the dry-bun-burger-van selling apathy in a napkin. I’m feeling pretty low.

With little else to occupy my mind I consider the prime parking spot. Over there, reversed up to the hedge, a perfect spot to creep out of the doors for a midnight calling. I tactically position the van into the quite, protected, level, discrete, calculated location. I walk round it to admire my well chosen positioning. This damp climate is ridicules my hands slips off the door handle as I try to open it, it happens twice, the third time realize I have locked myself out. The back doors are now safely locked and padlocked after last night’s experience and the passenger side is too. The keys are in the ignition, the phone is in it cradle and I'm outside, out of site and in pissing rain.
I know the score; I was locked out just a few months ago. With the help of a friend and a coat hanger, she was able to shout guidance from her vantage point as I guided the wire to open the catch I couldn’t see. And afterwards when the elation had subsided I never did hide my spare key under the bonnet, and that is why I am standing in pissing rain in the shadow of an orange glow. Locked out of the only thing I can call a home. This is shit.
There aren’t many choices, I need to get it. The cheapest window is the quarter window of the driver’s door. I tug at the rubber and manipulate the glass, getting more and more heavy handed, it moves and give a little encouragement. But it’s not enough. Perhaps I can persuade it. A high kick could jerk it from its rubber seal, it doesn’t take the hint. A second kick and still its holding its position. A third kick and it shatters, I put my hand through the window, get the keys out of the ignition unlock the door. I reach for the brush I keep under the seat, there are shrapnel diamonds lying in the dark cavities in front of the brush, I feel for the bristles and am bitten. I have gashed bleeding knuckles, a dash covered in glass, a van I can no longer secure. I'm soaked and desperate. Its time, I think, to admit defeat.
This is humiliating, this is depressing. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen, it’s exactly what she did want to happen. When you are a 45 year old single male and living with your mother, two of those three things will stay constant, your gender and relationship status. I am not living with my mother; I am staying with my mother. It’s a significant difference. The difference being that I am charging my batteries and researching the quickest way to get an India visa stamped into my passport.
It’s a bit like going to Norwich; I just took it a step further I can fly back for the price of 2 weeks London rent. And I can live for a week for the cost of a tank full of petrol.

The scrap yard had a van like mine sitting just there in the mud. I'm free to remove the window I need. It’s not easy even when in dry daylight I can get to both sides of the door. With all the rubber removed its still takes, force and determination to get it out in one piece, no wonder my heavy footed approach last night didn’t work. 15 quid, perfect. Now I know now to get it out I just reverse the procedure to install it. With a lot of fairy liquid it pops into place.
Whilst I’m installing it I get a call, ‘did you get my text’ the Brazilian girl has been off work sick and used the time to vacate her room, its mine and I can move in as soon as I like. So she wasn’t moving before? What was all that noise then? And whilst I’m in a questioning mood it occurs to me this is the 2nd text I haven’t got, in fact I haven’t had one for days. I call the help centre; the recorded message says most problems are rectified but removing and replacing the sim card, well that clearly won’t help me. I wait to speak to a live Indian, who patiently spends an hour trying to source the problem. After all manner of tests he is unable to diagnose the fault and tells me to go see my local supplier.
‘Is there anything else I can help you with today?’
Yes there is, what’s the weather like there at the moment?
I know my local supplier won’t touch it; I got the phone 2nd hand off the internet. In one last desperate action I remove and replace the sim card and what do ya know? 20 texts and some voice mails come through. I've been offered lots of rooms and even been notified of the ones I didn’t get. Even my phone conspired to keep me homeless, everything happens for a reason. I'm meant to go to India.
With my new window the van is safe to leave at the station.
One more trip to London this time by train, to the Indian visa service building, where you wait in the overheated over crowed waiting room whilst your number isn’t called. It’s specifically designed that way; if you can’t deal with it you are not ready for India.
I should get it back by Friday but there is a really cheap flight on Thursday. I take too long to think about it and when I click it is no longer available. Dam it. I refresh and relook and find one for just a little more, one seat left it says. Are they fucking with me? I don’t think long enough, I click, it is mine. This is the point I would shout out, if I had a visa in my passport ‘I'm going to India’ but I don’t so I just sit there and fret about what I have just done.
I'm not about to post an enviable facebook status update, just to change it after the postman fails to deliver on Thursday morning to ‘is not going to India’ so I tell no one and spend my days refreshing the visa progress and tracking site and looking at the place my watch would be if I wore one.
Then it arrives and the anxiety turns to butterflies.
Once more on the train to London, I still don’t have an oyster card. I don’t know what carriage to get in to be by the exit at Heathrow’s Terminal 4 underground station. I don’t have to I won’t be back for a while.

When I turned my phone on I'm Mumbai airport I got a text from Norwich, ‘Yes of course you can come and stay’

Good, bad or indifferent, please comment, just so I know you're there...Flid