The times we try to live in: a wide-ranging rant (but don’t worry, there’s humour in there as well)
I give in to the torrential and near-continual rainfall this summer. I give in to the inevitable liquifying of my brain owing to the bickering between the only two parties we ever see elected to government, both of them mediocre headline-chasers, uninspiring and with memberships hungry for power for power’s sake, keen to bring in yet more control freak policies, and to fuck over those least capable of withstanding being fucked over by anyone. I give in to the newspapers, TV and radio that have collectively decided it’s time for a Second Great Depression because it promises great opportunities for photographers to snap starving waifs in the city centre of Bradford (which, we’ve been told, by a misnamed think tank, should be emptied of human life as quickly as possible, with the refugees rehomed by uncharacteristically generous and practical-minded Oxford and Cambridge dons).
tags: Africa, anger, chavs, China, Conservatives, credit cards, debt, depression, estate agents, Georgia, global warming, inflation, Labour, mortgages, Olympics, opinion polls, politics, rain, rant, recession, Russia, SADEstate agents: from buy it to buy me
Britain’s estate agents are in big trouble. New figures released by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) reveal the number of successful transactions per estate agent have reached a 30-year low, with an average of just 17.4 transactions per estate agent made in the three months to the end of May.
“The point-four refers to a small potting shed in Keighley, West Yorkshire,” explained a RICS spokesperson. “We couldn’t make it 18 transactions because the shed had a leaking roof and a broken window. If we were living in 2000, and not 2008, then of course we’d have seen a huge demand for such des-res accommodation. But only a pigeon fancier ever showed any interest in buying it, and he proved difficult to convince. The estate agent concerned had to throw in his own Mini Cooper as an incentive to clinch the deal.”
tags: credit crunch, depression, estate agents, housing, humour, money, recession
