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anyorderofus · 7 years

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I’ve just stepped on a snail

Hello everybody,

This week’s blogs are as odd and outlandish as ever but maybe you’ll read something you like.

And if so, why don’t you pop back here next week and read: The lazy persons...

Maybe it’ll be good - we certainly hope so!

Alexandra & Nico|Nico & Alexandra

ALEXANDRA

I have decided not to take this blog title too literally, because that could be heart breaking.

I’m going to take it down a more metaphorical route and use it as an analogy to moan about the perils of renting in London, where I live. Well, just about survive.

I consider myself to have been born and bred in London although this is debatable. I’m from one of those places that was renamed a London Borough in – I believe – the mid-sixties. When it happened, all the posh people who lived there opposed it because they wanted to keep their Surrey postcodes, just for their millennial children to face the struggle of understanding their own identities nearly six decades later*

That’s right, old people were causing a fuss for the younger generation long before Brexit.

Now I live in a fully validated London postcode but fear I might not for much longer. This is where the stepping on a snail thing comes in:

Rent prices are like a big, booted size 11 and the splintering and shattering of the fragile snail’s shell, as the boot comes crashing down on it, is the hopes and dreams of its inner slug. The slug, being me.

I don’t write this in an attempt to solve the issue; it’s all very keyboard warrior. I don’t know what to say, what to do or how to do it but it does make me very sad that I can’t afford to live in the city I love most without feeling financially safe. To feel unsafe is not nice and yet mine is by no means the sobbiest of sob stories. I don’t have kids or a parent to care for, I am freelance – out of choice – and I don’t buy junk food just because it’s cheaper. But people do have kids and parents, they have full-time, tough jobs and perhaps do have to sacrifice an avocado and quinoa stuffed quail’s egg omelette for a microwave burger and chips on occasion, just to afford a roof over their family’s heads and a disapproving look from Agatha’s Mum at the school gates.

People aren’t snails (obvs); we try to make our living situations as home-like as possible with the lingering fear of it never being forever hanging over us. We can’t just up and move as easily as a snail because of family life, commitments and moving costs, nor should we be expected to if we not only choose to live somewhere but if that somewhere is where we are from, where we belong.

Please don’t crush us (snail reference).

So, if you’re a landlord, lady or owner, please spare a thought for everyone you’re renting to in London, especially those who need you to most. Who knows? If you lower your rent to a sensible rate, maybe you’ll win a ‘Renter of the Year’ award and others will follow suit.

*I may have exaggerated. I rarely think anything of it.

NICO

I’ve just stepped on a snail. I didn’t mean to, it was an accident, I took a step backwards and there he was. Could have been a she, I didn’t get time to ask.

There are known to be 80,000 species of snail on the planet so I potentially have a subconscious fear they’ll keep growing in number until they’re able to take over the planet and start giving things snaily names like in a bad film i.e. Shell Gas, GastroiPods etc. Obviously they’re only really threatening if you’re a lettuce, but I like to think they’ve got better things to do than worry about being eaten all day. Probably writing manifestos for the Green Party or discussing the paradox of voting for vegetarians when they are in fact, endangering themselves, as kebab meat must have saved the lives of many a head over the years.

Either way, back to the life I accidently took. We’ll never know how much or little that wrong step affected the local snail community. Studies have proven that snails do indeed have a homing device, which suggests they have HOMES! A scientist once marked a snail with tipex to see if it was the same one returning to his garden after being thrown out (literally, he wasn’t escorted by tiny doormen). Turns out it did, it knew where it was going. I can only hope the one I inadvertently removed from this mortal coil was on their way to work, not home.

I guess over time I’ll get over it, forget about my little misstep and get on with my life, but there’s the tragedy of it isn’t it. We all leave our mark on nature and just carry on regardless never giving a thought to how it effects the bigger picture of big shared blue planet. Mind you, I might have done the snail community a favour. He could have been a real villain of a snail. Could have rocked up in his big shell next to another one and told them how much hard work it is carrying around such a luxurious home. He could have snuck into other snail’s shells while they’re busy and helped himself to whatever he wanted. He could have rented out his shell for ridiculous London prices, waited till his tenants were financially unstable and jacked the prices up. Or he could have just been a nice little snail. Thanks to my clumsiness, we’ll never know.

I’ve just stepped on a snail, and I will use it as the tinder on which my new passion for small shelled brethren shall burn. I’ll also live in hope for some easier blog titles to come out of the jar. It was like we were TRYING to make them more difficult and abstract…

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