House/Housemate Hunting

A guide to houseshare renting/letting

I have a room to rent (400/mth in Morden all bills included if your interested) It is a pain in the arse doing this, it demands a lot of attention as I don't want to share a house with someone like 'the Bomb' again. I do find room wanted or room to let adverts quite amusing and written in a certain code. I believe I have now cracked this code.

Housemates that like their privacy

-Translation Stay away! Miserable unfriendly bastards, possibly compulsive masterbators as well!
Conclusion - Certainly not like that in my house!! where I used to be welcomed every day in my room by Leo playing playstation and William sat on the computer, discovering amusing new websites.

Prefer to live with females

Translation- Will take offence to my persistent habit of weeing with the bathroom door wide open, and the male necessity to rearrange themselves in the crotch area. Might not like football watching, playstation playing or the fact that we get (free) Fantasy channel, Adult channel and Playboy channel transmitted into the living room
Conclusion - Steer well clear! to much old school Latino machismo in my house

Cool Aussie House/flatmate/chick/guy

Translation - All Australians THINK they were born cool, why? I don't know! bit like Scousers that all think they were born comedy geniuses or Geordies that think everyone loves them. 'Cool' probably means that they dress for shit rain or shine, talk with irritating intonation? that sounds? like they are continually?? asking a question? On a Sunday after playing some strange gay sports in the park go binge drink snakebite, whilst listening to crap Dawson Rock, and bringing joy to some desperate English ming a ding ding who think they've copped off with a 'cool' Aussie.
Conclusion - One man's cool is another man's freedom fighter/terrorist or something like that

Friendly House

Translation - They have no friends other than their housemates, good if you also have no friends!
Conclusion - I like to think I have friends or at least some people who tolerate me to a certain extent.

Professional household/housemate

Translation - this is a very frequent specification! though what is a professional?? I presume it suggests a) you have been to university b) you have a profession c) you think you are a bit good d) you don't want anyone uneducated and common in your house.

Conclusion
As far as i'm concerned you are not a professional if; a) you work for free in the charity/creative arts/media sector, don't care how challenging your job is you earn bus fare and dinner money, enough said. b) you work for a prestigious big name firm yet all you do is photocopy and hand out the post c) Selling advertising space does not make you a media or advertising professional, it makes you a telesales employee, don't care how much you earn, its a few rungs up the food chain from that half-wit that phones me up saying 'Mr OwCona wuld ya lowke som nu windas'.

Open Minded House/Housemate

Translation - The prospective housemate or some people in the house are a little unsure about their sexuality
Conclusion - Hopefully it is the girl/s.........and they are good looking!

Laid-Back

Translation - Lazy!! will not clean house or wash dishes
Conclusion - Tolerable as we have dishwasher and cleaning lady!
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Bond Villains and the Eighties Men

After a recent skiing trip in Wengen, Switzerland I observed the following;

1) Middle Aged and older Northern Europeans (Swiss, German, Dutch, Belgian) look and sound remarkably like the villain's from James Bond films. So much so that I was concerned that there might be some conference going on to hatch some future evil plans. Unfortunately I did not have access to a 007 DvD collection to give me some ideas how to put a stop to their dastardly mega-lo-maniac plans. Even more unfortunate was that there was a distinct lack of Bond Girl equivalents around the place.

2) The offspring of these Bond Villains look remarkably like rich-kid Americans from 1980s films, like the rich kid Miles from The Goonies whose dad is going to buy Goon island and gets terrorised by the subterranean Goonies whilst he is sat on the throne at the country club, the 'preppy' guy from Animal House whose bird spanks his monkey with rubber gloves on, or even Johnny from the Karate Kid.

3) Not everyone uses 'please', 'thank you', 'sorry' and 'excuse me' as much as the British. Indeed it seems that in some countries when you bump into someone the custom is to then look them up and down, perhaps this is one of the reasons behind Euro-scepticism in contemporary British society.

4) If you are due on your bus at 12.15 and arrive at 12.12 in Britain you are early! In Switzerland the silly cheese-munching, money laundering, yodelling, mountain dwelling moustached bus driver points at his watch and curses you in German..........Bell End.