Wednesday 22 February 2012

Career Potential



Something wonderful has happened.

Long before I moved in to my flat, all the furniture, all the wall art, all the crockery, all the tea towels, etcetera, were already meticulously sourced and in many cases already purchased. I couldn't bear the idea of sitting on a folding chair many months after moving in, surrounded by bare walls, patiently accumulating ornaments and items of furniture which would eventually transform my house into a home. It was like starting off naked and being given the opportunity to build an entirely new wardrobe from scratch. Immensely personal, indefatigably fun, and a race against time - because who wants to stand around naked any longer than necessary? I don't regret my rush to have everything picked out in advance of my moving in. What I do regret is that I can no longer just pop into Habitat now and again to pick up a few colourful kitchen gee-gaws (my mother's term), as I have one of everything already and my kitchen is beginning to look like a box of crayons. I would describe the aesthetic of the living room as eclectic, teetering dangerously on the threshold of eccentric. The grey sofa is the one anchor of neutrality. When I'm tempted by beautiful homewares in blogs or magazines I have to remind myself that statement items would be drowned out in this place, even in my comparably serenely decorated bedroom which has already reached its quota of mismatched prints and ostentatious jewellery. And there is no more space. I don't mind that the flat is crowded and colourful, I just miss buying things for it.

Anyway, the wonderful thing is that I now have a job. A fabulous, creative, career-catalyst type job. Naturally, many of the personal and financial problems I was previously facing have now been obliterated, including, most generously, the one I've mentioned above. Because I have my own office. That means a whole new room full of bare walls and potential. The picture above is already hanging next to my desk, an oversized 80's mess of primary coloured squiggles, snaffled from a colleague's vacated office. The stationary possibilities are almost overwhelming. Already I find I am distracted by the dusty black in-trays that came with my desk, when this one from Habitat has vastly more retro charm. It's exciting to be on that quest again for decorative perfection. Although my eyes hurt when I think of the tray and the poster next to one another. So, for the sake of my sanity and of unsuspecting visitors, this time subtlety will be key. Let the challenge commence.

Wednesday 1 February 2012

Leaseholder Blues

"Hi Michael -

Thank you for your letter regarding the required fire safety upgrade which I received this evening, taped to my front door. I would ask that in future you simply post any letters for my attention into my letterbox. The letterbox may not be 'smoke sealed' but I find it adequately serves its intended purpose, and I do not appreciate correspondence being attached to my front door in the manner of an eviction notice."

Not to sound like a conspiracist or anything, but Hackney Homes are trying to kill me. Or at least turn me into a cranky wizened old bitch who writes passive aggressive emails like the one above. Yes, I actually sent that. Yes, I'm aware there'll be a swarm of civil servants standing around Michael's computer screen tomorrow morning laughing their heads off (what is the correct collective noun for civil servants? A cluster? A herd? A murder?). I came home this evening to find a notice stuck to my front door, informing me that the London Fire Brigade had deemed our building unsafe and that our properties would need to be altered accordingly. My letterbox must be sealed. A door stopper must be installed. And, most disruptively of all, the grill must be removed from my front door. I understand, HH. I get it. The grill is a fire hazard. If a fire spontaneously lit itself somewhere in the flat, if I managed to sleep through my smoke alarm, if I forgot the not-so-secret place where I've left my keys every single day of my life that I've lived here (the key hook) and didn't manage to unlock it in time, the grill could, in theory, prevent my escape and lead to my untimely death. If I was a council tenant and I was injured in a fire because my council flat did not meet appropriate safety standards, I would be mad at the council. I would sue their faces off. But I am not a council tenant, I'm a leaseholder and Hackney Homes do very little for me except debit £125 from my bank account each month in exchange for dousing the lift with bleach twice a week. I don't imagine for one moment that HH are genuinely concerned for my safety. If they were, they would be willing to acknowledge how much more likely it is for me to be burgled than to die in a fire, and they would understand why I would rather have the grill on my front door. As I have found to be the case with so many government organisations, their main prerogative is ensuring that a certain box gets ticked. My only feeble means of retaliation is to scorn them via email. Council bureaucracy is incredibly marginalising and invasive for leaseholders like myself. The least they could do have respect for my front door, which happens to be my personal property.