Diary of an up and coming sociopath

Okay, an update on the situation, since it’s both changed a lot and remained pretty much the same.

One sunny yesterday morning, Ian and I walked into Oxford town centre to poke around a few job agencies. The responses we received were less than positive, running the full spectrum of “We can’t take you on for less than 6 weeks.” to “If you wanted a job now, you should’ve signed up in May.” Hardly encouraging. After our total failure, we took in a McDonalds ice cream (Ian) and milkshake (me) to stave off the heat, and considered our next move. The one agency which was highly recommended to us was literally packed with people, being seen one at a time by a slow counter jockey. We decided that the best course of action was to come early-ish one morning, and strike then.

Today, we got the Oxford tube down to London, met up with Josh, and checked out a few letting agents. Our first problem came when we agreed with Josh to meet at Starbucks. There are apparantly no less than 5 Starbucks in Victoria, Josh was in one, I was expecting him to be at another. We did eventually convene at a third Starbucks, a small kiosk a little away from another actual starbucks. It’s getting ridiculous. Ian bought an A-Z and we decided to make our first stop Ludlow Thompson in, Acton. None of us had ever been to Acton, so we went and had a look, and it was quite nice. Nothing too bad, at least. We spoke with a helpful guy named “Dave” and he gave us the facts, and offered to show us around some properties later, so we agreed to meet him back there at 4:00.

Following this successful mission, we went to Ealing, and had a look at the various letting agents on the way up. It turns out Ealing is only a little more expensive than Acton, and we’re relatively certain it’s going to turn out to be one of the two that we choose to live in. After some walking, and Josh grabbing a remote control from his current london abode, we went back to Ludlow Thompson and were driven around in an extremely classy car which was plastered with advertising, and viewed the properties. They were both pretty good, if they are indicative of the quality we can expect for around £300 a week, we’re going to be in a great place, once we move in. We were all impressed with the professionalism of Ludlow Thompson, and especially the bright shining nirvana that was their head office. It’s like a whole new world of letting agents, and it really shows Isis Properties up as the 2-bit scam operators we suspect they might be.

After our successful mission of property viewing and informatino harvesting, we headed off to Tottenham Court Road and visited Forbidden Planet, where I made the entire week worthwhile by purchasing 2 more issues of Demo. We then took sweet merciful relief on our aching limbs, and went to the former wetherspoons pub near the Astoria, which I forget the name of. We were damn thirsty at this point, and over the course of the first 45 minutes, I managed to dirnk a pint and a half of pepsi, and I still felt I needed more. We also got meals. There was a really excellent offer on, which was “buy one meal from this range, get the cheapest free” - we decided to split the cost three ways and buy three meals, allowing us to all receive a portion of the freeness. When Ian went to pay, the guy at the till reminded him that having bought an odd number of meals from the offer menu, we were entitled to another, free, so Ian got another Tikka Masala. He and Josh split the three tikka masali between them, and I had “Cod Fingers and Chips” which turned out to be giant bricks of some really excellent cod with chips. It was well-received by us all, and not least because we were all really, really hungry, tired and thirsty. We stayed for a few hours, until the time came for us to all sod off back home. Which we did. So ended a day of walking unlike any other for some time, and with that in mind, when we go to the job agencies tomorrow, we’ll just take the bus. Assuming we can walk.