Falling Down

I couldn't watch 'This Is England' - I was tired and distracted and don't actually 'watch' TV as such - so I'll wait for the DVD and make a weekend of it.

I did, however - catch the Beeny thing. The worlds most fertile woman and a couple who bought a wreck in Brighton. Very entertaining. The house they bought seemed to be a hybrid of this house here and the one I owned in Brighton - there was nothing I hadn't had to deal with myself. I am an expert on Bungeroosh and damp proofing, although I used a different system in my basement kitchen - which was by the way, also used in the Chanel Tunnel ( It's called vandex and it's fucking ace)

I actually really liked that little house - I thought it was really cute - the work it needed was typical of a Brighton property of that period and there was nothing so very bad about it. They could really have handled it better if they had just sat down and thought it through and got some decent advice - something I learned myself the hard way. Electrics and plumbing are actually really easy - and the fact that Brighton is full of properties being renovated, upgraded and divided means the city is full of good tradesmen who are easy to find by word of mouth and will always work for cash or favours.

The trouble with these two was that they were only really interested in a very high spec interior - their budget was massive ( 50k ) for what was essentially a tiny 1 bed house - you can actually build a new 4 bed for 50K - and the kitchen and bathroom they installed was fucking awful. What amused me was the location. I had a look at a couple of houses on that road and the though 'not in a million years' came to mind both times. they are on that terrible little road that runs around the station concourse - heavy, 3 lane traffic at speed 24 hours a day, in fact probably the only fast moving traffic in Brighton. A rowdy pub next door, 'Sussex's Oldest Sex Shop' a couple of doors away ( one of the old style seedy ones - not the modern ones with fancy window displays ). It's a really dirty street because of the station and the cars and busses - all the houses are caked in soot. You get drunks at night rutting, vomiting and sleeping in your garden and weekends are hell on earth, and no real oustide space.

To be honest - I thought it was a sweet little house and deserved saving - but I can't understand the logic of two very small downstairs rooms - and two GIANT white sofa's... it did have one wonderful redeeming feature - it's a short walk from the Battle of Trafalgar, but everyone in Brighton now knows that you are out all day and don't have proper window locks.