Luckily I had somewhere to move back to when I arrived back from Italy last month, but I can only stay there temporarily. So, I am currently undertaking the joyless task of looking for somewhere to live. So far, I've seen nine places. No joy. Is there such a thing as a non-rip-off-merchant landlord/lady in the whole of London?

London 20sixers... give me hope! My feet are hurting from trudging round Bethnal Green/Highbury/Bermondsey (everything looks so much smaller on streetmap!) and I'm giving up hope that there is a bunch of nice, friendly, non-minging individuals sharing a house somewhere (within zone 2) with a room big enough to fit me and my shoe collection in. How did you find your London flat? Do I HAVE to use the Loot (gah!)?

It gets grimmer. So, last night I saw the first place that I've actually really liked, that wasn't the size of a match box, would fit all my footwear in without trouble, not a pit of ming with mingyness strewn about the place, realtively new, zone 1, East End (v important as 'West if for Wankers' generally proves to be true), not twothousandsixhundredandninetyninepounds a month with a sixthousandfourhundredandfifty pound deposit but there was still a big fat but. Well.

So I meet one of the girls living there. There aren't many people in the world who have made me feel so ignored, insignificant and so much like a nobody in my whole life, but she can now go into the category previously only occupied by two of my former acquaintances, Miss R Crowler and Miss N Griffiths. She went on and on about how her work (fashion PR, funnily enough), all the languages she speaks, and how communication was so important to her. Apparently, however, she had failed to realise that good communication is 50% to do with listening not just filling every nanosecond with the sound of your own voice talking about you you you. Eurlch. Hideous.

So I get into work today and see that I've received some emails from people who have seen my ad via one of the househunting websites I've signed up to. Brenda from Camberwell was looking for someone Christian who doesn't drink or do drugs (hahaha) to share her flat (pop that in the trash), and then there was Neil from East Finchley. He described his place, (sounds nice, plenty space etc), what he was looking for in a flatmate (someone quite tidy, sociable etc), and then just as an after thought, a little throw away 'by-the-way' at the end he writes 'I'm also looking for someone who does not eat red meat'. WHAT the...? Christ alive, I'm moving back in with my parents. Fuck this for a game of tennis.

It could all end in tears... or another continent. Well, this flathunting lark is getting me down. In my infinitely logical wisdom, it has suddenly begun to seem an easier option to emmigrate.

Someone sends me an email about a room to let. It costs an OBSCENE 600 quid a month. Sod that for a game of table tennis. This is how the email convo continued...

Me: Ooof! pricey! How expensive is this town anyway! Am having a mare. Someone sent me a link about speedflatmating, so might go down and check it out.

Yeah, fuck it, let's go. When we leaving?

ASAP - I MEAN THAT

How much dollar do I need?

well, flight will be around £400 - I'll get us the best possible deal through my brother at BA, I'm sure accommodation will be cheap and we'll just try and find jobs when we get there.  Heck, what were credit cards invented for?  Don't forget there is great fashion there too......

Well, my sister has circus contacts* for us if we want... and there's a friend of a friend form sheffield who has some kind of real estate business out there... i'm sure we'll find something. When shall we go? I need to save some money first!
*(20sixers - my sister ran away with the circus in brazil a couple of years ago... but did return thankfully)

oh my god, don't tease me, I'm quite serious about this.  How soon can you get money?

Well, if I don't find a flat we might as well go as soon sa my time in this one runs out - 11th sept. If i am super-careful I might have some money...

I lose my flat 30th September - this could be perfect.......  I now pray you don't find a flat.

oh god, I smell danger! Right. So far on my shopping list are some of those havinawoeirais or whatever they're called - those flip flops everyone's got. Hmmm. dunno what else they do in Brazil. Caparinhias? Let's get some of them! We'll have to learn portuguese!

eeeek! I can feel a bout of career-avoidance coming on!

Someone responded to my mass mail out in search of a room yesterday with an email about the new craze in finding a flatmate, 'speedflatmating'. Billed by the organisers as 'the FASTER, SAFER, FRIENDLIER and FUN way to find flatmates', having already seen 10 not wholly suitable places I was willing to give it a shot. So, off I skipped to 93 Feet East on Brick Lane last night to pay my £7.50 and meet ten whole people with rooms in their flats to let out, potentially to me.

Much like speeddating (so I'm told), you get a card with a list of the people you meet on it and tick next to their name if you're interested in them and their property. You have five minutes to chat and work out whether or not you could live with the people in question. Five minutes may sound like a piddly amount of time, but belive me, it seems like forever when you're faced by two evilly pristine girls looking down their GoldmanSachs-employed-Cambridge-grad-noses at you as their £160-a-week flat is out of your budget. There were some characters at the event, that's for sure. Simon who shares a house with his two Californian cats and who was responsible for a rather well known garage track to do with chocolate confectionary a couple of years ago, a props designer, a couple of TV meedja types, a trainee lawyer, a buddist paralegal... but none really for me. I can imagine this concept working for the lonely hearts market, as really, there's a lot less criteria involved - it's fairly basic, ie either you're attracted to them or not. But with flatmating there's location/$$/people/what the room's like all to be considered, and unless you're able to be flexible about more than half those criteria, it seems rather pointless.

The last table I visited was inhabited by an absolutely gorgeous young man. Beautiful, very sweet and with a flat that was very stylish but rather out of my price range. Anyway, we chatted about the flat and he told me about how friendly the neigbours were and how he had met his girlfriend at a party in another flat in his complex he'd been invited to when he first moved in.  Mentioned his job which was creative, and obviously uber-cool. I suddenly wished it was the other type of speed event I was at...

Current perceived possibilty of finding a suitable flat in London: 3/10

Current likelyhood that emigrating to Brazil will be easier: 7/10

A message from the flatmate match site:

Listing ID:	H04081111215363
City:	london
Area:	3- North (Camden, Islington, Highgate, Hackney, Finsbury Park, Hampstead)
Flatmate info:	zhe,28 yrs. old, Male, Non Smoker. Preferred language: English.
Room Info:	£ 102.00 Per Week, House, 2 Floor, Parking available. Furnished, Share bath, Carpet, Cable jack.
Comments:	同住的都是中国留学生,欢迎新留学生加入。巴士W4站就在门口,4站(或步行15分钟到Tumpike Lane地铁站。BT宽带上网。 单人住75镑 双人95镑(包BILL)

Right, well, probably not for me then...

as it constitues boring office wank, however I am VERY annoyed as I have just had to deal with an INCREDIBLY imbecillic woman on the phone.

I have to send an email inviting the chairman and another couple of people from the major bank of a European country. I don't speak this particular European language and have absolutely no notions of it either, so I called up the bank to check the spelling of the person's name, as I obviously needed to get it right or the email wouldn't get to him.

"Afternoon, *** Bank" says the imbecile

"Oh hello," I say, "I was wondering if you could tell me whether or not I have the correct spelling of ***** ******* please?

silence

Me, rather unsure of myself due to silence: " only I have to send him an email so I wanted to make sure of the spelling."

Fuck wit says: "*** ***** down't work in the London office"

Me: "Well, do you have a directory of some sort you could possibly check in for me?"

silence

"Well is this right? *** *****" I venture

"Yeah" she says.

"And your chairman," I say, "what's his name please?"

"I'm not givin' you that information."

"Er... why not?" I ask

"Look, I down' know hoo you awre, you could be cold callin' ow anyfink. I can't just give dat kinduv information owt to anyone, I down know hooo you are, do I?"

Oh for FUCK'S SAKE you MORON! I'll go and look at your annual report myself then shall I you FUCK WIT cos, funnily enough, there's a nice smiley picture of your chairman in there with his NAME WRITTEN RIGHT NEXT TO  IT.

Grrrr.

Idiot. I hung up on her for being so stupid. She probably has like, 3 GCSEs, eats McDonalds every day and wears bubblegum pink trousers that show her cellulite. Ooof. I'm fine with stupid people, I jsut don't want to have to deal with them.