HOUSE

No, not the irritating Hugh Laurie doctor off the telly. Nor the thing that you shout at bingo.

THE THING MADE OF BRICKS THAT YOU LIVE IN IF YOU’RE LUCKY.

Yes, my friends: It’s time to speak of HOUSING.

Now, I’m all in favour of shamelessly venal cartoon villains who rip off everyone they meet. After all, I’m one myself.

What I despise is the spineless, flabby minds of people like a certain former green party councillor, who lives on my estate. One who put out local email ’shouts’ advertising rooms to let for ‘decent people’ who want to pay yuppie- flat prices for an ex-council flat (no DSS, of course. )

You see, kids, I live on an estate which was once peopled by crusties, eco-warriors, reclaim the streets types. A hotbed of raves, wild parties, and righteous groups opposing the invasion of Iraq. The kind of place where you could hear a plummy basil brush accent emerging from a person covered in engine oil with hair like the predator. Where children were named ‘Fern’ and stuff like that.

YET US CRUSTY PONCES ALWAYS LIVED IN HARMONY WITH THE SMACKHEADS, AFRO-CARIBBEANS, AND WORKING CLASS WHITE SQUARES.

However there was this cliche you used to hear at parties: that people who join the green party or become ‘eco-warriors’ are after all often borgeouse hypocrites playing at being radical. That one day their true colours would show, when they returned to the pro- establishment class loyalties of their parents.
What an outrageous assertion! I hate cliches, don’t you? So I decried it. After all, ’stereotype not others, lest you be stereotyped yourself,’ that’s what I always say.

But I was wrong, damnit. Finally, I must admit it. I WAS WRONG.

I don’t know about where you live, but almost every one of the people in my area- HULME- who espoused radical anti-establishment views, and then went on to buy their council flats- has ended up selling or letting it, for a profit. While there are still homeless people on the streets. (My own father is one of them. Although he did bring that upon himself, the idiot…but that’s another story…)

The stunning bit is this: every single one of these new landlords has come out with a story about how they are not typical thatcherite/blairite/brownite selfishers; that somehow the way in which THEY are profiting from the corrupt state approach to social housing, is in some way a secret part of their cunning plan to make the world a paradise and save the icecaps.

You see folks, the people round here all recycle their bottles. They put them into huge glass smashing bottle banks, to be shipped to china and made into MORE bottles.

And the flat I complained about being turned into yuppie housing? Advertised by a green party activist? It’s OK because…

It has an eco toilet.

Well, I think I’d better go and take my medication again now, I can feel the red mist rising.

Your humble savant

THE VAUDEViLLIAN.

Postscript: What has all this leftist polemic got to do with VAUDEViLLE, I hear you ask? Normally I’d say cheerfully reply ‘Nothing at all!’ But do you know what? Actually, it has everything to do with it. It’s called CONTEXTUALISATION, fatso.

This is WHY I do Vaudeville. This is the reason for all of the performances, the writing, the comedy. For me, this is one way to oppose the terrible mediocrity of our epoch.

What do you think?