Poor Man About Town

Tuned into Nick Ferrari on LBC today and there it was again with the frequency of the Chinese Water Torture - Galliard Homes ads at every single commercial break. If I come into billions of pounds, I would buy Galliard Homes so that I would make the entire company go bust, such are my feelings. By the way, there is no such thing as a home anymore, all this housing boom bullshit has put paid to this notion - suggest that Galliard Homes change its name to Galliard Properties.

Labels: Advertising, Greedy Property Developers, LBC, Radio

We are living in a time when economics and the market have become the driving forces behind how we live and how are culture is defined. A good example of this is around accommodation or dwelling. Property developers and many companies who flog or rent properties no longer use the words home, flat, house, dwelling - they now use the word "development", "luxury apartments", "property", "investment" etc. It's as if these bastards are doing a splendid job in alienating people - being without a decent home. A really good example of alienation. House and home no longer exist. When more well-off people buy a house, they no longer buy a house they buy into greed - buy to let, buy to exploit. We shall have to wait and see how this very nasty development will pan out on the social and cultural landscape.

On an indirectly related note, I went past a Foxton's Estate Agent today. I thought it was a coffee bar - coffee and ice cold soft-drinks available to customers. The decor looked like a fucking multi-coloured nightmare - furniture in cardinal colours - all brightly lit with neon - you would need a welder's mask to walk into the place. The place looked as if it suffered too much interior design - panache and style were conspicuous by their absence. The employees appeared to be twelve year olds in suits. My suspicions were confirmed - Foxton's exist solely to encourage people to flog their property through other better established estate agents.

Labels: culture, Economics, Estate Agents, Greedy Property Developers, property, Society

I downloaded this podcast from the BBC, Crossing Continents, it was a report by Julian Pettifer who examined on how holiday makers and property developers are beshitting the Mediterranean. Spain has become so overdeveloped and polluted, that property developers are casting their sights on the Eastern Med. In Montenegro, for example, it is estimated that there are 2000 bits of plastic polluting 1 square kilometre of sea. In spite of the National Law that allows everybody access to the beach, property developers have marked out their territories, like a dogs pissing on the corner of a wall, by hiring security guards to patrol the beach that they consider theirs, ie near to where they have built an hotel. On one beach, Julian Pettifer was told to leave by a security guard as it reserved for special people. He went to another beach and told by a security guard that he could stay on a beach if pays "twenty five erreh (twenty five Euros); for the twenty five erreh he would get a sun bed and beach umbrella. Gosh, it seems that property developers are dangerous and hazardous pollutants.

You can download the podcast here

Labels: environment, Greedy Property Developers, pollution

In surfing the web, I found this campaigning blog against property developers who are laying waste to garden space in Cardiff. It's nice to see a like minded people on the blog. What is interesting about this entry, however, how these greedy and destructive bastards become so well embedded and networked in Government. Another area of concern is that these greedy buggers are alleged to be using dirty tricks to get their own way.

The article, and for that matter, the entire blog makes interesting reading

Here's another article on the same subject

If you think that things could not get any worse check out channel

Also check out Channel 4 Despatches "Bad Housing"

Labels: goverment, Greedy Property Developers, New Labour, property, Property Developers

Another overheard phone call, there was this African lady on the bus remonstrating with her estate agent for marketing her house at too high a price. She was really annoyed, she said that there is a one bed room flat being sold in her area for £150 000. Her three bed house, it seems, is on the market for £280 000. No one will buy. After much haggling with the estate agent, they agreed a new price of £210 000! That's some reduction. It just goes to show that sellers find it difficult to exert any control over the house they want to sell.

Labels: cartels, Estate Agents, Greedy Property Developers, Housing, housing market

I was passing through Lavender Hill, Battersea SW11 on the bus today. I was amazed by the number of estate agents alive and kicking in the area. Every other shop was an estate agent, there was even a cluster of three different estate agents next to each other. This was unreal, this was mad. Has the local economy become so dependent on the buying and selling of its houses.

Is this the South Sea Bubble revisited. When this fucking blows, it will be an economic tsunami. Already the cracks are starting to appear. City gents are already starting to throw themselves out of buildings.

Labels: Economics, Estate Agents, Greedy Property Developers

I was reading in Private Eye No. 1185 about the New Labour Deputy Leader Candidacy - it seems that there are number of private concerns bankrolling their campaigns. Here is the list quoted from said issue of Private Eye

Peter Hain gets £5000 from Terry Johnsey "millionaire property developer"

Alan Johnson gets £2500 from DMQA Holdings and another £2500 from another property developer, The Wykeland Group.

Hilary Benn got £10000 from REITS Asset Management.

Nest we have the Property Developers' Social Security Cheque Real Estate Investment Trusts.

So now you know

Labels: Alan Johnson, Greedy Property Developers, Hilary Benn, New Labour, Peter hain

Much of London's architecture is being flattened by greedy property developers - the purpose being is to make way for luxury apartments. London, as a consequence, is fast losing its ambience and atmosphere. I was saddened by the news that a property developer has got hold of Kensington Odeon, the plan being to replace it with a stunning new development of luxury apartments with a basement cinema. Tessa Jowell, Culcher and Supercasino Secretary, has given the go-ahead.

Having said that, Michael Winner has declared that he will support the petition against the development.

Labels: Greedy Property Developers, tessa jowell

More and more public land and property is literally being shovelled at Greedy Property Developers. My guess is that we will be having to pay a toll to walk through certain sectors of our city. This video about Hornsey Hospital sums up my sentiments entirely

Labels: affordable, development, Greedy Property Developers, homes for sale, house development, luxury, new houses, new property, PFI, privatisation, Property Developers, public, uk

LBC keep on churning out these adverts for Galliard Homes, these ads are really getting on my nerves - all they seem to do is to conjure images in my mind of extremely greedy property developers who seem to be on the rampage for every scrap of land and every single brick in London. I have checked out the homes on offer and, in my view, they look really monstrous; the sort of confections one would find in nouveau suburbia rather than a major capital - in fact London is fast becoming just another retail park with luxury apartments thrown in for good measure. Give it another five years or so, London will lose whatever character it possesses thanks to this massive and thoughtless redevelopment of the city. Y'know the economic downturn is imminent, people are already been laid off from jobs etc. Companies like Galliard Homes are going to have an awful lot to lose when the tide comes in - that's one consolation.

When Gerald Ratner declared that he was selling crap he was expressing a sentiment that many property developers keep tightly to themselves. Let's face it, whatever they put up is complete crap and the wierd and wonderful things is that people buy it!

Labels: commercials, Greedy Property Developers, LBC, Radio

Mark Steel Solution on Radio tonight, topic was on Housing and he proposed that where you live should be selected at random on an annual basis.

He spoke of living in a council flat and this bloke who was in tow of three dangerous dogs who used to shit outside Mark S' door. Although it was comical he spoke of people being plagued with barking dogs, drug dealers and burglars - such visitatations are far cry from those trashy tv programmes that look at buying a new home in a lovely area or country and how to turn said how into a palace - that's why all those diy centres are doing such a brisk trade.

Christopher Isherwood slummed it in Berlin in a tenement block - here are a few extracts:

"I descended slowly the five flights of stairs to the courtyard. The bottom of the court was clammy and dark, although the sun was shining on a cloud overhead in the sky overhead. Broken buckets, wheels off prams and bits of bicycle tyre laid scattered like things that have fallen down a well"

He describes the noise:

"Lying in bed, in the darkness, in my tiny corner of the enormous human warren of tenements, I could hear, with uncanny precision, every sound which came up from the courtyard below. The shape of the court must have acted like a gramophone horn...Somewhere on the other side of the court a baby began to scream, a window was slammed to, something very heavy, deep in the recesses of the building, thudded dully against the wall. It was alien and mysterious and uncanny, like sleeping out in the jungle alone"

Christopher Isherwood - Goodbye to Berlin

He said that because his landlady had bolted the door, he could not use the loo that was shared with four other flats, his landlady had advised him to use the bucket by the oven.

Housing is a huge problem - people are homeless because housing has become unaffordable, because of gentrification and property developers muscling into areas abd socially cleansing areas which are potentially desireable and then muscling out its incumbents. The Intolerant Rich are taking over our areas and this only supports the supports the statement that Property is Theft

Labels: Greedy Property Developers, Housing, housing market, Property Developers, the rich