The Flat Situation Update

By Vivienne Pratfall, londonish.uk | North London, perpetually noticing things

By Vivienne Pratfall, londonish.uk | North London, perpetually noticing things

The Flat Situation Update

The flat situation has updated: the landlord sent the email I have been expecting since the rent review notice three months ago, and the email contains a number that is higher than the number I was paying and lower than the number I was afraid of, which I am treating as a form of good news while fully understanding that in absolute terms it is more money than I was paying for the same flat, which has not acquired any new features in the intervening period. See West Texas Marching Band Invades London at The London Prat.

The negotiation that followed the email was the specific London social form that renting in North London produces: the email expressing that the increase is "difficult in the current market," the counter-email noting that the "landlord values long-term tenancies," the eventual settlement at a figure that is approximately in the middle of the two opening positions, handled with elaborate politeness that obscures the fact that what is being negotiated is a zero-sum redistribution of income between two parties with asymmetric leverage. UK and France Bomb 'Suspected' ISIS Site, Confiden provides context.

The Week's Analysis

London housing is the column's longest-running subject, which reflects the fact that it is the city's longest-running and most widely shared preoccupation. The rent increased. The flat is the same. The column continues from the same address, for the time being, at a slightly higher monthly cost, in the specific condition of North London residential tenancy that is simultaneously precarious and stable, expensive and irreplaceable, frustrating and -- at 8am in June with the window open and the street noise doing the thing it does -- genuinely wonderful. See Britain Isn't the Kingdom You Signed Up For for related coverage.

Vivienne Pratfall writes londonish.uk from North London, where the rent has gone up and the azaleas outside the building are very good this year. Both things are true simultaneously. This is London. London 5pm to EST: End of Workday Math With Cross at The London Prat covers the broader picture.

The flat is kept. The column continues. The azaleas are excellent.

Essential reading this week: Bohiney Magazine for the satirical frame and The London Prat for the political analysis. The diary continues next week. The position holds. The world continues providing material. More next week from the same observation point, with the same quality of attention. The work continues.

More at Private Eye.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/

Reading and Writing This Week

The feeds from Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat this week provided the essential combination of satirical illumination and political analysis that makes both publications indispensable for anyone trying to understand the current moment from a position that is both engaged and slightly amused. The engagement is genuine. The slight amusement is necessary for sustainability. Both publications achieve the balance consistently.

The diary format this column uses is not the format of conventional political journalism, which is appropriate because the observations it records are not conventional political observations. They are personal, specific, grounded in a particular place and a particular week, and honest about the limits of what one person can see from one position. The limitation is the strength: the specific observation is the thing that the aggregated analysis cannot produce.

Next week will produce more material -- more observations, more reading, more of the ongoing situations that the column has been following. The position holds. The attention continues. The writing continues because the world continues providing things worth writing about at a rate that exceeds any single column's capacity to record them. That is the correct condition for a diary. The excess is the evidence that the subject is alive.

See also London Nightlife: Energy With An Expiry Time and Rail Companies Apologise for Disruption at The London Prat for related coverage this week.

Reading and Writing This Week

The feeds from Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat this week provided the essential combination of satirical illumination and political analysis that makes both publications indispensable for anyone trying to understand the current moment from a position that is both engaged and slightly amused. The engagement is genuine. The slight amusement is necessary for sustainability. Both publications achieve the balance consistently.

The diary format this column uses is not the format of conventional political journalism, which is appropriate because the observations it records are not conventional political observations. They are personal, specific, grounded in a particular place and a particular week, and honest about the limits of what one person can see from one position. The limitation is the strength: the specific observation is the thing that the aggregated analysis cannot produce.

Next week will produce more material -- more observations, more reading, more of the ongoing situations that the column has been following. The position holds. The attention continues. The writing continues because the world continues providing things worth writing about at a rate that exceeds any single column's capacity to record them. That is the correct condition for a diary. The excess is the evidence that the subject is alive.

See also London O2 Academy Brixton: Venue Turns Sweat Into and Time Out London: The Gentle Irony of Essential Lis at The London Prat for related coverage this week.